Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a post-apocalyptic action adventure movie from 2024 that George Miller co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed with Nico Lathouris. Serving as a prequel and spin-off to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), it is the fifth entry in the Mad Max series and centers on Charlize Theron’s original Imperator Furiosa character. Along with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke, Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne play younger versions of Furiosa in the movie.

A teenage Furiosa and her sister Valkyrie find a troop of motorcycle raiders have found their home, the Green Place of Many Mothers, years after a worldwide disaster. Furiosa was caught and taken prisoner as she tries to damage their cars. In an attempt to save her daughter and keep the Green Place safe from the raiders, Mary Jo Bassa follows after them. However, she is unable to stop the raider carrying Furiosa from arriving to the Warlord Dementus and his Biker Horde’s campground. Dementus holds Furiosa imprisoned in an attempt to get her to lead him to the Green Place, even though she manages to severely hurt the final raider before he can reveal where it is.

Mary slips back into the camp later that night to get Furiosa, but the Biker Horde spots her and follows. Furiosa is overwhelmed and caught; Mary remains behind with a gun to give her enough time to go, but Dementus binds her to a tree and burns her alive. Upon returning to her mother, Furiosa is forced to witness her mother’s death by Dementus, who then kidnaps her.

Afterwards, Dementus and the Biker Horde reach the Citadel, a Wasteland outpost with an abundance of food and fresh water. Immortan Joe is the head of the Citadel. When Dementus tries to instigate a rebellion against Joe, Joe’s fervent army, the War Boys, launch a crushing attack on Dementus’s army, killing several troops and vehicles. Dementus, however, succeeds in successfully besieging Gastown, a nearby oil-rich Wasteland outpost, and departs for the Citadel. Dementus asks for copious amounts of food and water in return for sparing Gastown from destruction. Dementus agrees when Immortan Joe offers to make Furiosa one of his brides and The Organic Mechanic the Citadel’s doctor.

Over the next few years, Furiosa grows up and works as a mechanic, supervising the building of a “War Rig” that can carry supplies to the nearby outposts and withstand raider attacks. Furiosa disguises herself as a boy to elude Immortan Joe’s son, Rictus Erectus. Furiosa tries to hijack the War Rig to go back to the Green Place on a supply run, but she is easily stopped by Praetorian Jack, the rig’s driver, who is the only other survivor of the attack. But Jack chooses to make her his second-in-command after realizing how talented and capable she is. Eventually, the two become enamored with one another and resolve to run away together one day.

Since assuming control of Gastown, Dementus has brought it dangerously close to collapse, endangering his already precarious relationships with the Citadel and the Bullet Farm, a metal plant that produces ammunition and weaponry. Furiosa and Jack are forced to flee the War Rig after being attacked by Dementus and his horde while on a supply mission to the Bullet Farm. Jack and Furiosa just about get it out before Dementus comes up to them and flips their getaway car, breaking Furiosa’s left arm in the process. Jack is dead after being tortured, but Furiosa escapes by chopping off her damaged arm and goes back to the Citadel.

Furiosa, having had her arm fitted with a mechanical prosthesis, launches a solo attack on Dementus and a few of his soldiers, isolating him in the process and demanding the years and life he stole from her. The narrator suggests that Dementus’s body is trapped in the Citadel, beneath a tree that grows through him, originating from a peach seed Furiosa preserved from the Green Place. Furiosa kills Dementus, though the precise circumstances of the killing are unclear. Furiosa receives a new War Rig driver and becomes Joe’s Imperator in exchange for her services. Eventually, the five wives that Joe now has are The Splendid Angharad, Toast, Cheedo, Capable, and The Dag. Later, the night before another supply run, she stows them away within her War Rig.

88% of the 190 reviews from reviewers on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes are favorable, with an average rating of 8.0/10. The verdict on the website is as follows: “Retroactively enriching Fury Road with greater emotional heft if not quite matching it in propulsive throttle, Furiosa is another glorious swerve in mastermind George Miller’s breathless race towards cinematic Valhalla.” Based on reviews from 60 critics, the weighted average site Metacritic gave the movie a score of 79 out of 100, signifying “generally favorable” reviews.

On May 15, 2024, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga made its global debut at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures opened it in Australian theaters on May 23, 2024, and the next day it was distributed in theaters across the United States. Reviewers praised Miller’s directing, writing, action scenes, musical soundtrack, cinematography, and cast performances—especially Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth—for their excellent work. The movie opened to favorable reviews. Some, however, had issue with the tempo and visual effects.