How Has 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Influenced the Last Ten Years of Cinema?

Ten years of Mad Max: Fury Roadis hard to contemplate. The fourth foray into George Miller’s unique vision of the post-apocalypse was in development for so long, it still feels surreal that another Mad Max installment exists. But Fury Road is viscerally, urgently real. A masterpiece of cinematic chutzpah in every regard, Mad Max: Fury Road delivered a scrumptious feast of visual storytelling. It also balanced incredibly thoughtful social commentary and feminist concepts with whiz-bang delights like chainsaw fights or a flamethrower guitar.

Fury Road’s awesomeness is not remotely questionable ten years later. But what about its specific influence on pop culture? How Fury Road has permeated action cinema since its release is a lot trickier to parse out.

Seven months before Fury Road zoomed into theaters, a guy named John Wick went after the guys who killed his dog and stole his car. Though the original John Wick made a little over $100 million less than Fury Road domestically, it was also a much cheaper movie to make. Emulating John Wick was a much easier task for low-budget action film producers than trying to make “shiny and chrome!” happen again. Plus, key John Wick personnel like director David Leitch and producer Basil Iwanyk immediately leapt into either helming or producing other films beyond John Wick sequels. Leitch even started 87North Productions in November 2014 (just a month after Wick’s success) to spread the gospel of a new style of action cinema far and wide.

In contrast, Miller didn’t produce (let alone write or direct) further movies in the seven years between Fury Road and Three Thousand Years of Longing. Fury Road distributor Warner Bros., meanwhile, wasn’t interested in mimicking Fury Road’s costly R-rated spectacle. The studio instead tried getting the DC Extended Universe stable. With these realities in place, the second half of the 2010s and especially the first few years of the 2020s saw Western action cinema modeled by John Wick’s shadow. Fury Road was beloved, but it didn’t inspire endless direct copycats.

It’s also a shame that, though Mad Max: Fury Road, with a “little” aid from Katniss Everdeen and fellow 2015 blockbuster The Force Awakens, helped spur further women-led action films (Atomic Blonde, Birds of Prey, Alita: Battle Angel, etc.), most of them didn’t have primarily women ensemble casts like Fury Road. 2017’s Ghost in the Shell, for instance, surrounded Scarlett Johansson with male supporting characters. Ditto 2019’s Captain Marvel, 2016’s Rogue One, and this summer’s forthcoming From the World of John Wick: Ballerina (what a concise title!) Some glorious exceptions exist, of course, thanks to Everything Everywhere All at Once, Widows, and The Woman King.

However, Fury Road’s vision of an action cinema future where everyone from Zoe Kravitz to 88-year-old Melissa Jaffer could kick ass and take names never came to fruition. Subsequent action cinema, unfortunately, largely only had room for one lady protagonist. Fury Road was such a subversive upending of all typical action cinema molds that, inevitably, the formula-driven world of mainstream movies couldn’t keep up. Only the most superficial bits and pieces of Fury Road have really transferred over to subsequent action films. Take the default poster art for the long-forgotten 2018 sci-fi film Future World starring James Franco and Milla Jovovich. Its title font and orange desert-oriented imagery clearly want viewers to think of Fury Road.

Now, Hollywood and other film industries would not have been better if every single action film since 2015 was an exact Fury Road duplicate. Just look at how John Wick pastiches like Love Hurts and Fight or Flight have become so tiresome in 2025. However, it is a pity that the right lessons weren’t gleaned from Fury Road’s success. Such lessons go beyond multiple women inhabiting an action film. Fury Road should’ve demonstrated to Hollywood the value of taking familiar pop culture properties in brand-new directions that firmly belong to a fresh generation of moviegoers.

Fury Road is not a film full of cameos from the first three Mad Max installments. Mel Gibson is no longer playing Max. George Miller’s camerawork and other visual impulses are noticeably different from what he accomplished in The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome. Compare that to the last decade of legacy sequels desperate to recreate the childhoods of older moviegoers.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Frozen Empire brought EVERYONE back from old Ghostbusters films, including a creepily resurrected CG Harold Ramis. Jurassic World Dominion featured an awkward scene paying “homage” to Dennis Nedry’s death, complete with that Barbasol can coming back. Tim Burton rigidly returned to one of his earliest manic worlds with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. And then there’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s cowardly obsession with yesteryear.

Legacy sequels and franchise extensions have become an exercise in regurgitating the past, right down to creepily ensuring everyone from Ramis to Peter Cushing to Christopher Reeve can never die thanks to ominous CG technology. Fury Road, meanwhile, works just as well for folks who’ve never seen a Mad Max movie as it does for franchise veterans. A scene like the wide shot of Furiosa (upon realizing the home she’s yearned for his gone) on her knees wailing in the wind will hit you in the gut no matter your prior Mad Max experience. It’s a dynamite standalone film, not concerned with sequel set-up but glorious mayhem and imagery right in the moment. It’s a vision of Mad Max belonging to any moviegoer. Every frame isn’t first and foremost concerned with making folks over 40 wistful for their childhood.

Much like 2014’s The LEGO Movie, Mad Max: Fury Road was a creatively groundbreaking mid-2010s box office hit that’s even more of a cultural aberration now than when it was released. What few lessons the film industry learned from Fury Road were misguided and thoroughly superficial. At least that means the original film’s ingenious qualities are just as wonderful to experience as ever. Ten years later, elements like Nux’s character arc, Furiosa’s iconic design, or lines like “I had a little baby brother! And he was perfect! Perfect in every way!” still hit the spot. Mad Max: Fury Road, ten years later, is a masterpiece. It’s a shame the film industry didn’t take more cues from it, particularly in how rewarding it is to embrace bold, unexpected creativity.