Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

"Hold out for Mad Max. This is his greatest adventure."

1985 1h 47m EN

😐

6.2

MID

🍅

80%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

6.2

IMDB

★6.2TMDB · 3,401🍅80%Rotten Tomatoes●71Metacritic★6.2IMDB · 161,164

ActionAdventureScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Mad Max becomes a pawn in a decadent oasis of a technological society, and when exiled, becomes the deliverer of a colony of children.

“Hold out for Mad Max. This is his greatest adventure.”

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Cast

Mel Gibson
Max Rockatansky
Tina Turner
Aunty Entity
Helen Buday
Savannah Nix
Bruce Spence
Jedediah the Pilot
Angelo Rossitto
Master
Adam Cockburn
Jedediah Jr.
Frank Thring
The Collector
Paul Larsson
Blaster

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: George Miller
Writers: Terry Hayes, George Miller
Languages: English
Countries: Australia

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

41 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Mad Max Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by George Miller, shot by Dean Semler. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Maurice Jarre. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Richard Francis-Bruce shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Mel Gibson and Tina Turner and Helen Buday carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Hold out for Mad Max. This is his greatest adventure.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

George Miller directs. Dean Semler behind the camera. Maurice Jarre scores. Richard Francis-Bruce cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in Australia. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.
241 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Part of the "Mad Max Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by George Miller, shot by Dean Semler. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Maurice Jarre. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Richard Francis-Bruce shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Mel Gibson and Tina Turner and Helen Buday carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Hold out for Mad Max. This is his greatest adventure.".
9IMDB entry: tt0089530 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 28 themes, including "australia", "arena", "dwarf", "dictator".
11Released under 23 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Dean Semler
Original score: Maurice Jarre
Editing: Richard Francis-Bruce
Production design: Graham "Grace" Walker
Costume design: Norma Moriceau
Makeup / hair: Rosalina Da Silva
Sound: Bruce Lamshed
Stunt coordinator: Grant Page
Runtime: 107 min · 1h 47m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $10,000,000
Box office: $36,230,219
Return: 362% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 71/100
IMDB rating: 6.2/10 · 161,164 votes
MPAA: PG-13

Awards

1 win & 10 nominations total

Part of

Mad Max Collection

Mad Max is an Australian dystopian action media franchise. Mad Max references are deeply embedded in popular culture; references to its dystopian, apocalyptic, and post-apocalyptic themes and bizarre landscape and desolate wasteland imagery. The collection currently includes Mad Max 1-4 also Furiosa and as of yet to be released Mad Max: The Wasteland.

Also by

George Miller

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Charles Dance2017-02-20
★ 8/10
The best of the Mad Max films High production values and a compelling story line make this the best of the series. This one doesn't rely on basic car smashes for the duration and instead gives us a moving and more thoughtful adventure. No campy men dressed for the Blue Oyster bar in this one, thank goodness. The Road Warrior (1981) is widely regarded as the best but I have to disagree. That film had a very one note narrative that verged on the bland and an overload of homoerotic imagery. This is a beautiful looking and entertaining film that does not have the shoddy and amateur vibe of the first two. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is the film that the first should have been. - Charles Dance
John Chard2020-04-14
★ 3/10
Max Rockatansky and the Goonie feral gang. Even allowing for my unabashed love of the first two films in the franchise, and sweeping away any sort of biased leanings I might of had for the character of Max, I just can't bring myself to rate at average this cartoonery waste of space that so nearly soils what had gone before it. Gone is the rugged nasty streak that brought feeling to the character Mad Max Rockatansky, gone is the impacting feeling of desolation in an apocalyptic world, and more crucially, gone is director George Miller's passion for the franchise. The dreadful score matches the cartoon heart of the film, it seems that the makers didn't really know what to do with the amount of cash given to make this third instalment. Sure the stunts are spot on (to be expected by now), and of course Miller manages to paint a barren desert landscape by purely lifting from what he has done before. Yet he clearly struggled for fresh ideas with the action since "The Road Warrior's" crowning glory of the Petrol Tanker pursuit is replicated here, only he uses a train instead!!. It's just a very poor show that may have seemed like an ambitious turn of events back in the mid 1980s, but when viewing the three films together now, Thunderdome just comes across as a director losing his edgy approach whilst sadly getting caught between the mix of comedy and fantasy action. And the truth is that neither of those genre slants would have worked singularly, in the context of this series, anyway. I give the film 3/10 purely for one real good Thunderdome fight sequence, while the stunt men here deserve some credit at the very least. But this is the third time I have tried to like this film, and as glutton for punishment as I undoubtedly am, I wont be trying again, ever.
Wuchak2020-06-05
★ 6/10
Bizarre comic book post-nuclear adventure in the Outback with Mel Gibson and Tina Turner In post-apocalyptic Australia, Mad Max (Mel Gibson) travels to Bartertown in the Outback run by Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) & her associate The Collector (Frank Thring). Max accepts a deal to take out MasterBlaster, who runs the town’s methane production underground, but ends up exiled to the deadly desert where he meets… (watch the movie and see). “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” (1985) is the third in George Miller’s franchise after “Mad Max” (1979) and “The Road Warrior” (1981). The fourth installment, “Fury Road,” didn’t surface until 2015 (meanwhile Miller has announced a fifth entry, “The Wasteland”). All of these films were rated R except “Beyond Thunderdome,” which turns off some devotees. I could care less since the amount of gore, violence, sex and cussing don’t determine the quality of a film, except maybe to teenagers. Like the previous two films, “Beyond Thunderdome” combines the austere life-or-death situation with a cartoonish vibe, so it’s difficult to take it too seriously, as can be done with the first two Planet of the Apes flicks (1968 & 1971). This campy air always turned me off to these movies, but if you can accept it they can be enjoyed on their level of semi-believable fantasy. You just have to be willing to enter into their weird world. Most fans object to the kids in the desert angle, but this section only lasts 25 freakin’ minutes before tying back into what took place in the first act. Besides, Savannah (Helen Buday) is cute and has nice legs. The departure from a paradisal oasis in exchange for Bartertown seems nonsensical, but it’s figurative of leaving the utopia of youth to the ugly real world and challenges thereof. The verbiage is odd, basic and guttural so don’t look for fascinating dialogues. Meanwhile the storytelling isn’t very compelling. Nevertheless, the movie’s iconic to the 80s and has its points of interest, like its all-around bizarreness, the desolate landscapes, the laconic hero and cutie Savannah, not to mention Turner and her songs (“We Don't Need Another Hero”). The film runs 1 hour, 47 minutes, and was shot in Australia. GRADE: B-