Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015

I recently rewatched Mad Max: Fury Road ahead of Furiosa (which you should absolutely see), and was viscerally reminded of just how damn good it is. Though the notion that good art can only be made through suffering is one I don’t subscribe to, Fury Road is arguably a point in its favor—production was plagued with problems, from having to relocate the entire shoot from Australia to Africa, to an alleged feud between stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, to the grueling nature of filming in a desert. But the results are absolutely incredible, a testament to George Miller’s singular vision and the power of a great casting department.

Visually, Fury Road looks like nothing that came before it and almost nothing since (save for Furiosa), with Miller finally having the tools at his disposal to create a masterpiece. Erratic and rapid zoom-ins, blue-black desert nights, searingly bright sands, the ethereal, almost magical beauty of Immortan Joe’s wives, scantily clad in diaphanous white fabric—Fury Road feels like a masculine movie with a feminine heart. It will get your heart pounding in one moment and tear it out in the next. — Alyssa Mercante