Before he became Mad Mel in real life, Mel Gibson was Mad Max, the undisputed King of the Road in this action classic. Director George Miller turned the Australian outback into a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with bizarre marauders and tricked-out vehicles where the only real goal is to snag as much gasoline as possible so you can… well, keep driving around. The action scenes — most of which involve car chases and crashes — are raw and powerful, and still impressive 30 years later (no CGI trickery here, folks). However, as glorious as the stunts are (and the men and women who perform them), the film’s beating heart and soul is Gibson — a true honest-to-gosh movie star in his prime, still six years from his first turn as Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon.
