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The Mad Max timeline is a tricky beast to wrangle, but if you're slightly confused about where Furiosa, the latest Mad Max movie to hit the big screen, sits on it then you're in the right place. The film from visionary director George Miller offers up a prequel and origin story for Imperator Furiosa. Set some time before the last movie in the franchise, Mad Max: Fury Road, the new outing sets up the situation that led Charlize Theron's War Rig driver to make her grand escape from the Citadel. But just when exactly does Furiosa take place on the Mad Max timeline – and how does this fit into the ideal Mad Mad watch order?
Well, that’s where things get a little more complicated. Miller’s Mad franchise is made up of five films so far, although he does have plans for Fury Road sequel The Wasteland too. These movies take place over the course of several decades in an alternate-reality Earth, and roughly follow in chronological order, with Furiosa being the exception.
However, thanks to numerous retcons and recastings over the years, the actual Mad Max timeline is a little harder to pinpoint. But that’s where we come in. Below, we’ve broken down exactly when Furiosa takes place, as well as key details on how to watch the Mad Max films in order to get you started on your journey back into the Wasteland.
When does Furiosa take place on the Mad Max Timeline?
The Mad Max movies take place in an apocalyptic alternate reality to our own, set around the same time as they were first released. The series kicks off with Max Rockatansky in the mid-'80s, a police officer in an Australia that has collapsed due to war and resource shortages. He sets out on a mission of revenge from there after his wife and child are brutally murdered. The next two movies in the original trilogy take place from the late ‘80s up until 2005.
However, Mad Max: Fury Road makes this timeline very complicated, as a comic book tie-in to that film confirmed that it takes place around 2050. Tom Hardy replaces Mel Gibson in the film and looks pretty much the same age as the first movie so it doesn’t seem possible that he’s 45 years older. It seems at this point that Miller retconned the years of the series, and Fury Road just takes place in the years following the original trilogy.
Then comes Furiosa, which is a prequel to Fury Road. We first meet Furiosa as a 10-year-old and the movie follows her right up until the moment she gets on the War Rig in Fury Road, chronicling 16 years in her life. Based on this, it seems sensible to guess that Furiosa begins in around 2034 and goes right up until 2050. The trailer for the film also mentioned that it takes place "45 years after The Collapse," which suggests that it’s around 45 years after the original Mad Max movie. In short, that doesn’t really help matters…
Still confused? Well, let's break down all the evidence below for the key moments in the Mad Max timeline, to give you an idea when things take place. It's important to remember too that Miller doesn't spend much time going into the details of the timeline in the films so this is all best taken with a pinch of salt.
Mad Max timeline: Original trilogy
1973: Before the events of Mad Max, there was the 1973 oil crisis, which contributed to the downfall of society. This was confirmed in the official Mad Max 2 document, The Preamble (you can read that here), which sets up who killed the world. This reads, "Law and order, like every other aspect of Western society, have been swept away – put to the torch early one morning when Iranian troops, trying to export revolution, struck deep into the heart of Saudi Arabia." From here a war erupted, which set oil fields ablaze and halted exports. This led to prices skyrocketing and soon led to normal people arming themselves and preparing to defend what little they still had.
1973-1984: Society as we know it crumples, as places are looted, technology stops, and eventually highways are taken over by gangs. We learn snippets about this time throughout the films, but it’s also around then that the Main Force Patrol (MFP) was established as a way to control the roads. This is what Max works for before he goes rogue.
1984: The events of the first Mad Max take place around this time. The prologue establishes that the 1979 movie takes place a few years from that moment, and there’s a Highway 9 Sector 26 road sign that reads 'December 6, 1984'.
1984-1987: Things decline more quickly post the first film as electrical appliances stop working and in Australia, it means the emergence of the Wasteland. A place where those brutal enough to fight for resources would start a new life.
Around 1987/1988: The sequel, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior takes place around this time. It’s established that it begins around three years after the previous movie. People have fled into the Outback as society is now in complete decay and resources become more sparse.
1988-2003: At some point during this time, there has been a nuclear war. The warring governments still clinging onto power spark the conflict and a nuclear winter follows.
2003-2005: The third film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, is set 15 years after the events of the sequel. The world is now radioactive and society no longer exists. The only remaining civilizations live in new towns, like Bartertown, where the third movie is set.
Mad Max timeline: Fury Road and Furiosa
A new timeline is established at this point in the Mad Max films to explain cast changes and production delays, and fit better with current times. This is spawned by a new comic book that’s released to coincide with Fury Road, establishing the rebooted timeline. All of the previous events of the other movies have still happened, but later on.
Around 2034: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga begins. We don’t know the exact moment that Furiosa takes place, aside from the fact that it is "45 years after the collapse", but the easiest way to pinpoint the time is by working backward from Fury Road. Furiosa is around 10 at this moment, as confirmed by Miller to us. We meet her living in The Green Place, where she is stolen by Dementus’ men. She’s taken in by him as he establishes himself with Immortan Joe as a rival Warlord. During this time she is taken to the Citadel, where she first becomes one of the wives before escaping and pretending to be a young worker.
Around 2045: We then meet Furiosa, aged up and played by Anya Taylor-Joy. It’s not explicitly clear how much later this is, but she looks to be in her 20s at this point. We see her become established as a part of Praetorian Jack’s crew. We also see Dementus looking a fair amount older at this time.
Around 2045-2050: The 40 Day Wasteland War takes place after Dementus has tried to challenge Immortan Joe for the Citadel. This ends when Furiosa kills Dementus as revenge for murdering her mother and Praetorian Joe. The final events of Furiosa do lead directly into the beginning of Fury Road, but it’s not made clear how much time passes during this. Of course, by the start of Fury Road, we know that Furiosa is an Imperator, and she’s in charge of the War Rig.
Around 2050: The events of Mad Max: Fury Road take place around this time, but it’s never explicitly stated that this is when it begins. Per Screen Rant, it seems like it happens around this moment, based on the references in the film and the comics about the time since the war and other real-life events.
Beyond 2050: This is the part of the Mad Max timeline that we really have no idea about. However, Miller has spoken about how he often thinks about what happens to Furiosa after Fury Road. Watch this space…
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in theaters now. For more on the film, check out our guides to:
- The Furiosa ending explained
- Furiosa Mad Max cameo explained
- Furiosa post-credits scene explained
- Tom Burke tells us about his character's backstory
- Opinion: Furiosa's lack of lines is a trait of action classics
