When Mad Max: Fury Road officially opened this past weekend, film lovers all over the world lost their collective minds over a movie so wildly inventive and ridiculously action-packed. That said, picking only five best moments from one of the best action movies ever made (we watched it twice to make sure) was insanely difficult, but we tried our best. Tell us your favorite moments below!

Warning: Spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road follow!

 

5. The Sandstorm

Almost every trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road concluded with the stunning image of a car chase through an apocalyptic sandstorm filled with lightning and tornadoes and everyone seemed to think this was from the climax of the film. Not even close. The biggest computer-generated effects sequence in the film arrives at the end of the film's first act, depositing all of the right characters in all of the right places for the story to really shift into the next gear.

The storm itself is a thing of terrible beauty. Miller and his team of effects artists know that any CGI in this movie is going to be examined under close scrutiny next to all of the practical stunts, so every one ups their game in the most impressive way imaginable. These are computer effects that work so well within the confines of the actual story that we believe them like we believe everything else.

 

4. The War Parties Approach

Like any effective warlord, the vile Immortan Joe keeps his troops motivated and moving with music. But unlike the generals of old, who used bagpipes or trumpeters to keep the soldiers' blood pumping, Joe has a vehicle dedicated entirely to an electric guitarist, his back-up percussionists and a mountain of speakers.

This gnarly character, named "The Coma-Doof Warrior," provides every action scene with a unique soundtrack, but his best moment comes when he's barely on screen. When Max and Furiosa have their first intense confrontation, Joe and his convoy is quickly approaching in the distance. With each passing minute, the vehicles grow larger in the desert haze and that heavy metal soundtrack grows louder and louder and louder. Joe's personal soundtrack heralds his arrival and every increasingly loud note sends waves of panic through every character on screen.

Wanna learn more about the crazy guitar guy in Fury Road? Check out his origin story in our George Miller interview.

 

3. Nux Opens His Heart

Nicholas Hoult's Nux is a master class in making a bizarre and otherworldly character human and relatable. As a "Warboy" under the command of Immortan Joe, he's a doomed soldier, a young man dying of radiation poisoning who has dedicated his life to serving his master and dying for the cause.

The parallels between this character and real-world religious extremists are obvious, with Nux even attempting to martyr himself for the cause by planning a suicide bombing. After several failures, he resigns himself to hiding out on Furiosa's War Rig, where he is discovered by one of her charges and shares his feelings with her. In this conversation, we are truly allowed to see the inner workings of a fanatic and his eventual heroic turn is set up beautifully. Everyone is talking about the feminist messages of Fury Road, but it also takes the time to let us understand and comprehend that zealots are just as human as the rest of us.

 

2. The Polecats

Max Max: Fury Road is so jammed with astonishing imagery and practical stunt work that picking one sequence that stands out feels next to impossible. Hell, if we could get away with it we'd just say "the final 40 minutes" and leave it there. But this is a list of moments and if we were forced to pick a single moment from the film's glorious, kinetic climax, we'd go with the introduction of the "Polecats," road warriors from Gastown who sit perched on bendable poles which they use to leap from vehicle to vehicle (or to snatch people from vehicles).

To watch actual stuntmen hold on to these actual poles which are strapped to actual cars is to watch something that we have never seen before in the history of cinema. It is so real, so shocking and so... well, dangerous. The film could have cut these stunts because they were too crazy. But they weren't -- in fact, nothing was cut because it was deemed too difficult. And that's why this is a great movie and not just a very good one.

 

1. Furiosa Takes Aim

One of the great joys of Mad Max: Fury Road is watching how the relationship between Max and Furiosa evolves with so few words. Neither character has much to say to each other, and yet they transform from ruthless antagonists to partners-in-arms without a single big conversation.

Their transformations are defined by their actions, not words. Furiosa says more with a glare and Max more with a grunt than any dialogue exchange could ever hope to achieve.

Their greatest moment -- the one where these two stop being two strangers and start becoming allies -- comes when Max has one shot left in his rifle...and he hands it to Furiosa, who is the better marksman. She uses his shoulder to steady the shot and BAM! She hits her mark.

It's a quiet moment in a loud movie, an action beat that could have been nothing more than a thrilling scene. But everything changes between these two after this moment, and we read all of this information in the faces of Max and Furiosa. The character development of the film is next level. On the page, these two could read as paper thin. In the hands of Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, they're unforgettable.

 

What was your favorite moment from Mad Max: Fury Road?