Miller and Max

Miller and Max is the story of two heroes. One, the protagonist of the wildly successful Mad Max movies: a leather jacket–clad Road Warrior whose adventures in a dystopian future have made an indelible imprint on global popular culture. The other is the artist, George Miller, who created him: a softly spoken son of Greek and Turkish migrants whose life charts a spectacular course from a tiny Queensland town to the highest echelons of Hollywood.

George Miller would begin making his first film, Mad Max, in 1977 after privately raising $350,000 and hiring a no-name actor, Mel Gibson. Some people would be paid in slabs of beer. Edited in a kitchen, the film grossed more than $100 million worldwide and became the most profitable film ever made—a title it kept for two decades. Miller would go on to make more Mad Max movies over three and a half decades including Fury Road, which in 2016—against all odds—won a record-breaking six Academy Awards, the largest haul of an Australian film in history. In between times, with both success and failure in Hollywood and beyond, Miller’s quiet determination and audacious filmmaking is never more apparent than in the Mad Max universe.

Written with the cooperation of a role call of cast, crew, family and associates, Miller and Max gets behind the scenes and on set, as well as behind Miller’s sensible-sounding camouflage to reveal what’s really inside the man—which is more than a little Max Rockatansky.

‘A comprehensively researched and detailed dissection of the legendary Mad Max movies and of their extraordinary creator.’

David Stratton

‘A terrific achievement. An insightful, brilliantly researched and absolutely riveting account of an Australian icon and the filmmaker who created him.’

Margaret Pomeranz

About the author

Luke Buckmaster is an award-winning writer who has written about cinema since 1997. He is The Guardian Australia’s film critic, and chief critic for Daily Review.