Mad Max: Fury Road
Warner Bros. | Release Date: May 15, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
50
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ConsequenceJustin GerberFeb 25, 2016
Not only has George Miller made an effective return to the wasteland of the Mad Max universe with Mad Max: Fury Road, he has surpassed most action films released … well … ever. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenFeb 25, 2016
“Fury’s” pace is delirious, the stunts are incredible — such crashes, such explosions, such a lot of flying bodies — Hardy’s performance is a marvel of subdued conviction and Theron brings an impressive gravity to her work as Furiosa. Put it all together, and you’ve got a rousing crowd-pleaser that hits on all fast-revving cylinders. Read full review
100
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 16, 2015
Wild and unrelenting, but also possessed of the outlandish poetry, laced with hints of humor, that rises to the surface when the world is all churned up. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMay 14, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road will leave you speechless, which couldn't be more appropriate. Words are not really the point when it comes to dealing with this barn-burner of a post-apocalyptic extravaganza in which sizzling, unsettling images are the order of the day. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 14, 2015
The loveliest part of Mad Max: Fury Road is its grungy, quasi-Gothic imagery — the production was designed by Colin Gibson and photographed by John Seale. And the fullest flowering of its images can be found in its muscle cars, muscle trucks, muscle trailers and muscle buggies. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 14, 2015
Even in the most chaotic fights and collisions, everything makes sense. This is not a matter of realism — come on, now — but of imaginative discipline. And Mr. Miller demonstrates that great action filmmaking is not only a matter of physics but of ethics as well. There is cause and effect; there are choices and consequences. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMay 14, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road sets new standards in old-school stunt work and car chases and does it in service of an idea-driven story with a beating heart and an action star for our troubled times in Charlize Theron. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMay 13, 2015
Unstoppable and righteous, it roars across the no-lane hardpan like the four-iron horseman of the kinetic apocalypse, amped up on bathtub crank and undiluted movie love. Oh, what a movie. What a lovely movie! Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 13, 2015
The shock, really, is how tender Mad Max: Fury Road ultimately becomes. The film just wraps that tenderness in one of the most epic action extravaganzas of recent years. It's enough to renew your faith in movies. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 13, 2015
With Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller delivers the sort of jumbo-sized entertainment that makes you spontaneously break out in appreciative laughter: The breadth of his imagination and showmanship makes you giddy. Read full review
100
The DissolveKeith PhippsMay 13, 2015
If Fury Road were only interested in action, it would still be a stunning achievement, but the film has more on its mind. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMay 13, 2015
From its very first scenes, Fury Road vibrates with the energy of a veteran filmmaker working at the top of his game, pushing us forward without the cheap special effects or paper-thin characters that have so often defined the modern summer blockbuster. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 12, 2015
It’s all perfectly, wonderfully, fantastically crazy. Amidst all those ingenious, power-packed road warrior sequences, Fury Road contains a surprising amount of depth and character development. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 12, 2015
Strap in, load up and hang on because Mad Max: Fury Road is a freaky, ballsy, phenomenal ride. Read full review
100
New York PostLou LumenickMay 12, 2015
This spectacularly great reboot is surprisingly owned not by Hardy, who is fine, but by Charlize Theron. Read full review
100
EmpireIan NathanMay 11, 2015
Max’s re-enfranchisement is a triumph of barking-mad imagination, jaw-dropping action, crackpot humour, and acting in the face of a hurricane. Read full review
100
Total FilmJamie GrahamMay 11, 2015
A lunatic vision, as hilarious as it is hellish. And some of the greatest action ever put on screen. Read full review
100
Time OutDavid EhrlichMay 11, 2015
Marrying the biting frenzy of Terry Gilliam’s film universe with the explosive grandeur of James Cameron, Miller cooks up some exhilaratingly sustained action. But the key to this symphony of twisted metal is how the film never forgets that violence is a sort of madness. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 11, 2015
The world of Mad Max has always been welded together from bits of whatever was lying around, and the films’ brilliance has always been in their welding – the ingenious ways in which their scrap-metal parts were combined to create something unthinkable, hilarious or obscene, and often all three. Read full review
100
VarietyJustin ChangMay 11, 2015
There is gargantuan excess here, to be sure — and no shortage of madness — but there is also an astonishing level of discipline. Read full review
100
HitfixDrew McWeenyMay 11, 2015
There is nothing easy or predictable about what George Miller delivers with Mad Max: Fury Road, a stone-cold action master class, beautiful and brainy and startling in the ways it throws off the current definition of the blockbuster. Read full review
95
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeMay 11, 2015
Where Fury Road stands apart from so much of today’s action cinema is that the human element remains front and center. Read full review
91
The Film StageJared MobarakFeb 25, 2016
It’s not often delays, financial dissolutions, and waning interest make a film better, but I don’t want to know what Mad Max: Fury Road might have been without them. In its current form the film embodies a logical escalation of what director George Miller began over three decades ago by embracing the insanity eating away at his titular road warrior’s resolve. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 13, 2015
For all the chaos erupting at all times, we never lose track of what’s going on, because it’s been staged not just with diabolical mischief, but also total clarity. What a movie. Read full review
90
ScreenCrushMatt SingerFeb 25, 2016
Even though this is the fourth Mad Max, and it’s indebted to the style of the previous films, Fury Road stands alone. It’s better looking and more thrilling than any of the other installments. The color palette is vibrant and beautiful, and every inch of the frame is crammed with crazy, brilliant ideas. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 16, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road is certainly a blast and a half: You don’t just watch it, you rock out to it. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 11, 2015
The first two Max features ran barely 90 minutes and it takes guts and real confidence to dare push a straight chase film with very little dialogue to two hours. But Miller has pulled it off by coming up with innumerable new elements to keep the action compelling. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 14, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road kicked my ass hard. It'll kick yours. So get prepped for a new action classic. You won't know what hit you. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 14, 2015
Talk about taking things to a new level… Theaters showing Fury Road should have seat belts installed. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 14, 2015
This is analog filmmaking at its most daring. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 12, 2015
Grim, gruesome and glorious. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineEric HendersonMay 12, 2015
George Miller orchestrates the rubber-burning pandemonium with the illicit smirk of someone who knows he's giving us exactly what we want. Read full review
83
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 16, 2015
Miller’s not interested in character development, plot twists or social commentary, with one possible exception. He wanted spectacular stunts, which he achieves with tremendous skill, and a bad-guys-vs.-less-bad-guys pursuit that goes through countless exciting permutations. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 11, 2015
"Mad Max" doesn't just depict conflicts with evildoers in a tattered existence. It delivers a rare alternative to aggressively stupid action movies. At a time of great need, Max rides again. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezMay 11, 2015
Come for the blistering, full-tilt action, stay for the thought-provoking consideration of the post-apocalypse. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonMay 14, 2015
Nothing is too much, and whilst there is the danger that some will find the unremitting havoc tiresome, Miller's endless innovation keeps things fresh despite the surrounding wasteland. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 13, 2015
It is insane. In a good way. Whoever said "Too much is never enough" made an impression on Miller, who uses the phrase as a starting point and blasts off from there. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensMay 12, 2015
The majority of Fury Road’s effects were done without using CGI, but even so, the onslaught of action is so fast-paced and overpowering there’s little time to appreciate Miller’s analog artistry, and the feeling of being inside a video game—a sinking sensation familiar from less carefully orchestrated action movies—sometimes takes over. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 11, 2015
That adjective in the title is accurate. Extravagantly deranged, ear-splittingly cacophonous, and entirely over the top, George Miller has revived his Mad Max punk-western franchise as a bizarre convoy chase action-thriller in the post-apocalyptic desert. Read full review
75
NPRBob MondelloMay 30, 2015
Those pole riders swaying high above the action - hired from Cirque du Soleil, don't you know - there to help make "Fury Road" a gorgeous, scrap metal demolition derby of a popcorn picture. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereMay 14, 2015
Its true subject is the thrill of the chase and the means by which the movies express it, which is to say it’s one hell of a ride in the same direction taken by the characters: deep into a desert of vast and horizonless emptiness. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 14, 2015
George Miller's Fury Road is a hundred things at once: a biker movie, a spaghetti western, a post-apocalyptic dystopian action pic, a tale of female empowerment (The Vagina Monologues' Eve Ensler was a consultant on set), a Bosch painting made scary 3D real, a Keystone Kops screwball romp, and an auto show from hell. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 14, 2015
To say that there is also a monomania to the film is, if anything, an understatement. But it is precisely that sense of tunnel vision that makes Fury Road such a pulse-pounding pleasure. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 14, 2015
When the original filmmaker upgrades and expands on an idea and uses new technology while retaining the essence of the original story, it can be just the ticket for jaded moviegoers. Such is the case with Mad Max: Fury Road, an operatic extravaganza of thrilling action and nearly non-stop mayhem. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMay 13, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road is a relentless marvel of sense-pummeling stunts and gargoyle horror that needs to take a breather once in a while. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 12, 2015
The creator of the original "Mad Max" trilogy has whipped up a gargantuan grunge symphony of vehicular mayhem that makes "Furious 7" look like "Curious George." Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMay 11, 2015
When you get past Miller’s orgy of loco action sequences—and they’re so good, you may not need to—the story is pretty thin. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMay 11, 2015
For all the ways the movie feels singular and impossible, like something the studio suits couldn't possibly have signed off on, Fury Road also feels entirely of its era. I admire its craft and cruel wit, and its willingness to trust us to work out the particulars of its world, but it lulled me into that familiar state of summertime action fatigue, of being worn down by the violence rather than geared up, of waiting the mayhem out rather than tracking it. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 11, 2015
For a while, Fury Road’s complete disinterest in screenwriting fundamentals feels liberating, as the director keeps upping the ante on this desperate chase through the desert. But what feels liberating at first can become monotonous, and Fury Road starts to drag once the frenetic sameness of Miller’s strategy takes hold. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 15, 2015
The action sequences, at least as feats of engineering, are mightily impressive. But Miller is so caught up in all his hardcore allegorical hoo-ha that he never lightens up. Does he think maybe he’s Homer? Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 14, 2015
Yet all this wit and effort and occasional beauty is in the service of a movie that is little more than a two-hour chase scene, one that seems founded on the assumption that if you show one set of people chasing another, that’s enough to get an audience excited: Oh, no, let’s hope they don’t get caught! Read full review
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