Give a talented young director a tiny budget and it's amazing what they can do with it - George Miller's debut Mad Max is a perfect example of how a director of real vision and ingenuity can create a fictional world which feels lived in and authentic with virtually no funds. Give that same director $140 million and a free rein to do as he pleases and the results can be stunning (and if one word aptly sums up the experience of watching Mad Max: Fury Road "stunning" is that word). A two hour extended car chase which still manages to squeeze in more character development than virtually all of its rivals, Miller has crafted the perfect ode to the action movie and then ratcheted the volume up to, in the words of Spinal Tap's guitarist, eleven. It's hard to think of an action film which has had such a huge impact on the way in which movies are seen - at the very least, Fury Road will be remembered as representing a watershed moment in the reappraisal of the balance between computer generated imagery and practical effects. No doubt it'll be remembered for far more - it's as if Miller has taken the idea of "pure cinema" and applied it without fault to adrenaline-pumped action and made it all look completely effortless. Do you agree with the choices of movies on this list? What other films released this decade do you think will become classics? Why not let us know in the comments?
