Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Now that the world has actually ended, we get into the world that these films are most known for...the actual post-apocalypse. While the first film presented a psuedo-end-of-the-world with news broadcasts, green grass, night club singers, and general civilization, the sequel jumps straight into life after the nukes have blown.

Some have theorized that this is because the first film shows life during an energy crisis, where law and order organizations such as the police and lawyers are still grappling to maintain a hold on the last bastions of civil order even as society circles the drain. And then this film shows us how things have progressed after a nuclear war that resulted from that energy crisis.

My theory is much simpler. Now that "Max's World" has ended (when his family was killed), so has the actual world. The outer-world is a reflection of his inner-world. All those ideals of establishments and order mean nothing to the man whose family they couldn't save. Max has nothing left to live for, so he must find his own way. In existential terms, he is left to construct his own establishment from the rubble around him, according to his own set of rules. These rules will guide the anti-hero from this point forward...he, like so many noir heroes, is a bad man doing some good.

But this film is the beginning of Max feeling out those rules and figuring out what good deeds are worth doing, and how bad he can allow himself to be...

...or how "Mad"

The films begins by setting the stage on which everything will play out with stock footage mixed with some scenes from the first film. Basically, gasoline is rare after two superpowers have gone to war with one another. The film takes place in this aftermath...

Immediately after this establishing exposition, we get a face-full of awesome as Max wordlessly takes down some punk biker's dune-buggy friend.

This new Max has a dog, one half-sleeve, and a lot more grizzle than we last saw him with.

And now that the apocalypse has taken full-hold on the film, there's a need for a bit of levity. Thankfully, the dog has it.

Max stumbles on a gasoline refinery plant thanks to some dumb luck, and then must figure out how to get some of their gasoline, even as a group of thugs, led by Lord Humungus, attempts to do the same by force.

Pictured: Apocalyptic Karaoke

Simple. Straight-forward. Good guys and bad guys. With Mad Max somewhere in the middle of all of it.

There's inexplicable outfits.

With headbands!

And a feral child with a boomerang.

Because Australia, I guess?

Basically, Max is the master-less Yojimbo protecting a group of people like the Seven Samurai. But not out of the good of his heart. That's in there somewhere, deep down. But more importantly, he has a vested interest in helping them. In exchange, he gets fuel. Sure, literal gasoline for his car. But more importantly a goal, some connection to humanity that gives him a purpose other than making it another mile down the road.

If you haven't seen this film, you should. It's genre-defining, expertly directed, visual story-telling, post-apocalyptic goodness. There's a reason why, like Conan the Barbarian the following year, it had many imitators. This is peak Mad Max. And it goes downhill from here...