Mad Max (film)

Lore & Background

George Miller, a medical doctor working in a Sydney hospital emergency room, drew on his experiences witnessing injuries and deaths, as well as car accidents from his youth in rural Queensland, to conceive the film. He met amateur filmmaker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971, and together they produced the short film Violence in the Cinema, Part 1 before making Mad Max. Miller hired first-time screenwriter James McCausland, a finance editor for The Australian, to co-write the script, paying him roughly $3,500 for about a year's work. McCausland wrote the dialogue each evening, while Miller focused on narrative context and visual beats, drawing inspiration from the 1973 oil crisis and its effects on Australian motorists.

Principal photography took place in and around Melbourne over six weeks. The film initially received a polarised reception upon its April 1979 release but won four AACTA Awards. Filmed on a budget of A$400,000, it earned more than US$100 million worldwide, setting a Guinness record for most profitable film. The success of Mad Max has been credited with further opening the global market to Australian New Wave films.

The plot follows Max Rockatansky, a top pursuit man for the Main Force Patrol, who resigns after his partner Goose is burned alive by a motorbike gang led by Toecutter. When the gang kills his infant son and leaves his wife comatose, Max dons his uniform and pursues the gang in a black Pursuit Special, killing them one by one. The film ends with Max handcuffing the gang member Johnny to a wrecked vehicle and leaving him to choose between sawing through the handcuffs or his own ankle before the car explodes.

Reader's Guide

Mad Max is significant as the first film in a series that includes three sequels—Mad Max 2 (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)—and a spin-off, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). Its extreme profitability on a low budget set a Guinness world record and demonstrated the commercial viability of Australian cinema internationally. The film's dystopian setting, driven by oil shortages and ecocide, and its kinetic, silent-film-inspired visual style influenced the action genre. Miller's background as a doctor informed the film's visceral depiction of violence and injury. The film also launched Mel Gibson's career and established a distinctive aesthetic of vehicular mayhem and sparse, hyper-verbal dialogue that would define the franchise.

Did You Know?

• George Miller worked as a medical doctor in a Sydney hospital emergency room and witnessed many injuries and deaths like those depicted in the film.
• The film set a Guinness record for most profitable film, earning over US$100 million worldwide on a budget of A$400,000.
• Screenwriter James McCausland was the Melbourne finance editor of The Australian and had never written a script before.
• Miller and co-producer Byron Kennedy funded part of the film by doing three months of emergency medical calls.