9. The Mad Max Trilogy
Ahead of the release of the Tom Hardy-led remake of Mel Gibson's career-making movie, it seems fitting to celebrate the quality of the original movie. Channelling unexpressed social fears relating to the rampant progression of industrialism and the exhaustion of the Earth's natural resources, as the greatest sci-fi's tend to, Mad Max was a pitch perfect Dystopian portrait of a harrowingly inevitable future, starring a character almost as enduring as Judge Dredd. Max Rockatansky is Gibson's finest character creation, even outshining Riggs from the Lethal Weapon series, and it is his performance which adds depth and emotional weight to the sci-fi fantasy. With a hero that we care about, despite the removed circumstances, Mad Max becomes more than an extreme social morality tale - it is a vengeance flick, with B-Movie commitment and A-Movie execution, played out against an intelligently formed, grotesque landscape, and while the sequels are not quite as irresistibly good as the original, they did push the character even more to the forefront. It's a genuine shame Gibson went so publically off the rails, because a forth Mad Max, with an older hero, would have been a huge fan-service.
The Uncharacteristic Low Point? The Messiah allegory wears a little thin by the end of Thunderdome, and the younglings' inability to speak is horrifically grating, but these are minor trifles, and the trilogy rarely misses a beat.