Directed by George Miller / Screenplay by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris

Most long-running franchises understandably pass through the hands of different directors as the decades go by. A notable exception is the Mad Max series, which has spawned five films over 45 years, all devised and directed by the Australian filmmaker George Miller, otherwise known for such diverse pictures as The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Lorenzo’s Oil (1992) and Happy Feet (2006). When we first encounter Miller’s antihero Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) in 1979’s Mad Max, he is a police officer in a near-future Australia which is suffering critical shortages of food, fuel and other basic resources. By the time of Mad Max 2 (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), society has collapsed altogether, and Max is a drifter in a wasteland peopled by scavenger communities, jealously guarding their meagre supplies. After a gap of 30 years, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) finds Miller reviving the franchise on a spectacular new scale. This extraordinary film could be all too easily written off as one colossal, ultra-violent, deliciously preposterous multi-vehicle chase sequence, but that would do it a disservice: it’s also a redemptive fable about the survival of the human spirit and, refreshingly, a story of female empowerment. Max (now played by Tom Hardy) takes a back seat to Charlize Theron’s fiery avenger Furiosa, who gives the film its dramatic focus and its moral heart as she risks life and limb to liberate a tyrant’s captive wives and establish a matriarchal alternative to the barbarian society of men. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) is a prequel starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the younger Furiosa; and as recently as this year, the 80-year-old Miller revealed plans for a sixth film: “All I can say is we’ll see.”

Framed Dimensions: 400mm x 315mm

Acrylic on 230gsm Winsor & Newton canvas paper

Glazed, mounted and framed

Supplied with signed letter of authenticity from Barnaby.