'Mad Max' (1979) - Screen's 40 at 40

The debut film of former medical student George Miller, Mad Max is credited with bringing Australia’s New Wave to the attention of the world.

Made for less than $500,000, the film divided critics but went on to gross more than $100m and become the most profitable film ever, until overtaken by The Blair Witch Project in 1999.

In his first screen role, a clear-eyed, leather-clad Mel Gibson plays cop Max Rockatansky, patrolling a near-future Australia where oil is scarce and people are fighting over the scant remaining resources.

When his wife and child are killed by a violent biker gang who maraud their way through a small Outback town, Max hits the highway in an attempt to exact a brutal revenge.

Miller famously said he made Mad Max as a silent film with sound and, with cinematographer David Eggby, he captured the vastness of the Australian outback, setting the benchmark for depicting dystopian war-ravaged vistas in all their awful glory on the big screen.

Max’s descent into madness is mirrored by the collapse of society around him, which escalates in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

And by Miller’s 2015 chapter Mad Max: Fury Road, there is little left that is green, good or civil in the world. This latest film also further explores the 70-year-old Miller’s interest in gender and environmental issues; seeds that were sown successfully in the first film nearly 40 years ago.