[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beyondthund_6449.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:299:''[[Music/MenAtWork I come from a land down under\\
Where one man leaves when two enter]]'']]

->''We don't need another hero\\
We don't need to know the way home\\
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome''
-->-- '''Music/TinaTurner''', "We Don't Need Another Hero"

The third ''Film/MadMax'' film, released in 1985.

Many years after the first two films, Max Rockatansky (Creator/MelGibson) becomes involved in a power struggle over control of the fledgling new society of [[WretchedHive Bartertown]], between its founder Aunty Entity (Music/TinaTurner) and the duo "[=MasterBlaster=]" who control its energy supply. Making a deal with Aunty Entity to recover his stolen vehicle, Max must fight Blaster in TheThunderdome where "[[DuelToTheDeath two men enter, one man leaves]]". This eventually leads to Max running into a society of wild children in a hidden valley, who were survivors of a plane crash and believe him to be the pilot they have been waiting for to take them home.

The film is basically an adaptation of ''Literature/RiddleyWalker'', but with Max as the protagonist.
----
!!This film provides examples of:

* AffablyEvil: Auntie is the most gentle villain in the series. She even lets [[spoiler: Max get off alive when she had him at her mercy in the end.]]
* AllHailTheGreatGodMickey: Kids treat records and radios as magical. They also think Max (aka Walker) can magically make the plane wreck fly.
* AmbiguousEnding: in the final scene we see [[spoiler: Max traipsing over the dunes carrying a bundle of spears. His fate is left unresolved, he may continue wandering, go in search of the escapees in the airplane or return to the feral kids at the oasis. The third alternative is given credence in his speech to the community of abandoned children earlier in the film when he tells them "We're all going to stay right here, we're all going to live a long time and we're all going to be grateful", specifically referring to "We".]]
* AndImTheQueenOfSheba
-->'''Master:''' Not pigshit--energy! Me, King [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable A-rab]].
-->'''Max:''' Me fairy princess!
* AnimalCompanion:
** Max's monkey that was with him before his ride was stolen. When he is sent to the desert, Pigkiller sends it after him to bring some water.
** Scrooloose, the shaman of the feral children, has a pet monkey also. In his shamanic role, it's likely his {{Familiar}}.
* AntiVillain:
** Aunty Entity. Power-hungry harpy, yes, but she's genuinely trying to restore a little civilization, and is forced to be ruthless to maintain order in a CrapsackWorld. Certainly far more benevolent than the likes of [[Film/MadMax Toecutter]], [[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior Lord Humongous]], [[VideoGame/MadMax2015 Scabrous Scrotus]], and [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad Immortan Joe]].
** Master and Blaster. Aunty Entity's main rivals in Bartertown and perfectly willing to beat down others and put a stranglehold on the town without mercy to get their way, but they do care for one another deeply and [[HadToBeSharp being tough is the only way they can avoid being taken advantage of by others in this post-apocalyptic world]].
* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: Done in a ShoutOut to ''Film/ANewHope'' when Max chases Blackfinger in the underworld. After a beat or two, he runs back with a horde of mooks on his heels.
* AuthorAppeal:
** All of the ''Mad Max'' films have dealt with the effect of disaster on children; ''Beyond Thunderdome'' pushes it to the forefront.
** This wouldn't be the last time a dwarf and a giant would be a team, as ''Fury Road'' has Corpus and Rictus.
* AwardBaitSong: "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner.
* BabiesEverAfter: The crowd listening to Savannah in the final speech all have children and infants, including Savannah herself.
* BadassBoast:
** Master delivers one on behalf of his GiantMook bodyguard.
--->'''Aunty:''' You know the law. Two men enter, one man leaves.
--->'''Master:''' This Blaster! Twenty men enter, only him leave!
** Max vs the Tribe.
--->''(fires warning shot, everyone cowers)'' Now listen good. I'm not Walker, I'm the guy who keeps Mr. Dead in his pocket.
** Max delivers another one near the end.
--->'''Jed:''' Between them and us... not enough runway.
--->'''Max:''' '''''There will be.'''''
* BarbarianLonghair: Max sports this at the beginning of the film.
* BattleChant: "Two men enter, one man leaves!"
* BedouinRescueService: It looks like Max has had it when he collapses in the desert, but then Savannah appears and brings him to the oasis.
* TheBeforeTimes: The children, born shortly before or after societal collapse, speak of it this way: "I'm looking behind us now, across the count of time, down the long haul into history back."
* BigBad: ZigZagged with Aunty Entity, the ruthess ruler of Bartertown. On one hand, she's an ambitious, power-hungry leader of her boom town. On the other, she's doing her very best to maintain order and rule of law while restoring as much of civilisation as she can - [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans by all means possible]]. Compared with villains from other Mad Max movies, she's barely even qualified to be called evil, but Max still ends up having to face her anger.
* BigNo: Savannah screams and sobs "Oh, no! '''NO!'''" when [[spoiler:her friend is consumed by the sinkhole]].
* BlindMusician: When Max enters Aunty Entity's place, a tattooed blind man dressed in a loincloth is playing the {{Sexophone}}.
* BloodSport[=/=]GladiatorGames: TheThunderdome. It settles disputes and brings entertainment for the spectators.
* BrainsAndBrawn: [=MasterBlaster=] duo consists of a little person who is an engineer and Blaster, his hulking bodyguard, carrying Master on his back and killing anyone who as much as gives Master a strange look.
* CallBack: "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner is a call back to the first movie, where MFP police captain Fifi wanted to give society back its heroes, via people like Max.
* CargoCult: The film features an isolated tribe AfterTheEnd who worships a jet airliner as their personal Mecca and its pilot, Captain Walker, as a God who will guide them to "Tomorrow-morrow Land"—that is, the world of skyscrapers and urban life that no longer exists. They treat a children's Viewmaster stereoscopic slide viewer and its reels as holy relics that reinforce their lore, in addition to a salvaged pilot captain's hat that they intend the returning Captain Walker to wear. The local mystic carries a staff with a vinyl record on it, knowing that somehow such things would speak to people.
* CarsWithoutTiresAreTrains: The "train" at the end of the film is a retrofitted truck.
* CentralTheme: Children. Aside from the obvious, Master is the height of a child, while Blaster is essentially a brute with the mind of a child. Tina Turner's songs bring up the notion of children in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and Savannah Nix states at the end that they "does the Tell" so that their children and their children's children can pass on the story of their heritage (while playing with her own infant as she speaks). In the end, even civilization is being reborn.
* ChainOfPeople: The children trying to rescue one of their own from quicksand. [[spoiler: It doesn't work. In fact, had Max not come to the rescue, they would've ''all'' been killed.]]
* ChainsawGood:
** Subverted during the Thunderdome scene. Max manages to grab a chainsaw from the WallOfWeapons and proceeds to use it against Blaster. Unfortunately, [[AmmoUsingMeleeWeapon it runs out of fuel pretty quickly]], given that they live in a fuel-starved society and all.
** Later on Max and Suzannah Nix slam a heavy wooden door only to flitch back as a chainsaw blade bursts through it.
* ChekhovsGun: Blaster is rendered helpless by Max's bosun's whistle, since he has a WeaksauceWeakness against high-pitched noises.
* TheChosenOne:
** Max as "Walker", of course, but Savannah was chosen to give "The Tell" to Walker, rather than Slake, the leader of the tribe, who usually does it.
** Savannah was chosen because she found Walker. Slake says as much in his introduction to her Tell.
* TheCommandments:
** "Two men enter, one man leaves."
** "Bust a deal, face the wheel."
* ConvenientlyTimedAttackFromBehind: InvokedTrope; Aunty's guards interfere to stop Blaster breaking Max's neck, presenting it as a "spontaneous" quarrel that can only be settled in Thunderdome.
* CountingToThree: Max has to start a fight with Masterblaster, as a pretext to getting him into Thunderdome, the arena where he can be legally killed. Things don't start well when GiantMook Blaster grabs him in a NeckLift.
-->'''Master:''' Blaster, in three seconds, break neck. One...two...th--
-->''(ClickHello from Aunty's enforcers [[ConvenientlyTimedAttackFromBehind intervene just in time]])''
* CoolTrain: The big chase in the finale revolves around a train made of a truck and a small house that doubled as a methane powerplant.
* DeadHandShot: Subverted at the end of the film. After Max causes a massive crash, [[spoiler:the hand of [[TheDragon Ironbar]] falls out of his vehicle, strokes the woman's dollface on his standard, then turns upwards for a final defiant FlippingTheBird]].
* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:One of the kids is swallowed by quicksand]].
* {{Dedication}}: The film is dedicated to producer Byron Kennedy, who died in a helicopter crash shortly before the film was made.
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler:Ironbar's]] contempt for Max and co. carries to his end, where he flips the bird as his dying gesture.
* DenserAndWackier: In spades. While the post-apocalyptic tone is still intact, there are noticeably more jokes and broader fight choreography than the previous two ''Mad Max'' films. The B-plot of the tribe of lost children is also about as whimsical as this series has ever gotten.
* DepravedBisexual: A lot of the bad guys are wearing BDSM-style clothing, and when Max claims to the manager at the trading post (who's just concluded a deal with a trapper for a night in the sack with a real woman in exchange for an animal pelt) that he's got skills to trade, the manager replies "[[ImaginedInnuendo The brothels are full.]]"
* {{Descriptiveville}}: Bartertown. Justified in that it's supposed to have been founded pretty recently.
* DespairEventHorizon: When it seems all is lost due to explosions all around Bartertown in the final act, the Collector succumbs to the despair - until Auntie lifts everyone's spirits up by delivering a RousingSpeech.
* DiceRollDeath: Residents of Bartertown must "face the wheel" if they "bust a deal", i.e. break a vow. Said wheel is divided into ten unequal sections (Death, Hard Labour, Acquittal, Gulag, Aunty's Choice, Spin Again, Forfeit Goods, Underworld, Amputation, Life Imprisonment) and is spun to determine the person's fate. Max faces the wheel after he refuses to kill his opponent in the titular Thunderdome, receiving Gulag, a potentially lethal banishment sentence - and Max only survives due to dumb luck.
* DoItYourselfThemeTune: The opening and ending is sung by Tina Turner.
* DolledUpInstallment: The film was originally not a ''Mad Max'' film, but a post-apocalyptic "Lord of the Flies" film about a tribe of children who are found by an adult. It became the third ''Mad Max'' film when Creator/GeorgeMiller suggested that Max is the man who finds the children.
* TheDragon: Ironbar, who is the shortest but most tenacious of Aunty's men.
* DumbMuscle: Master's HandyHelper and BigDumbBody Blaster. Justified, [[spoiler:since he is disabled developmentally, and has a mind of a child]].
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:After three movies worth of hell wandering the wastelands, ''Beyond Thunderdome'' ends with Max finally heading towards a place he can call home.]]
* ElectiveBrokenLanguage: Heavily implied with Master; he speaks some kind of broken English until Blaster gets killed, at which point he reverts to a perfect English. It's implied that he does this [[spoiler:so that Blaster, who has a development disorder, can understand what he's saying]].
* EurekaMoment: The minute Max sees that his whistle causes Blaster debilitating pain (thanks to the helmet he wears), he ''immediately'' returns to Auntie to accept the deal.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Most of the misery Max ends up enduring through the film lies in the fact that he's perfectly okay with getting involved in Auntie's power plays to get his stuff back, and is okay with fighting Blaster to the death because that's the deal he made (the fact that Blaster is trying to kill him definitely helps), but he throws the fight the very second he notices that [[spoiler:Blaster is a man with Down Syndrome]].
* EvilPlan: Auntie Entity seeks to take full control over Bartertown, for which she needs to keep Master in check and eliminate Blaster out of the picture.
* {{Expy}}: Subverted with Bruce Spence's character Jedediah, who is not the same Gyro Captain who appeared in ''The Road Warrior'' despite the similarities between the two. It's just an example of George Miller hiring many of the same actors.
* ExtendedDisarming: Entering Bartertown, a guard tells Max: "Leave your weapons here, it's the law". A twenty-five second disarming sequence follows. The weapons check man is duly impressed. [[spoiler: Max keeps his fly-swatter though, which turns out to have [[SwordCane a knife hidden in the handle]]]].
* FateWorseThanDeath: Invoked in "One Of the Living".
-->''You can't stop the pain of children crying out in your head''
-->''They always said the living would envy the dead''
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The kids believe Captain Walker will help them leave for Tomorrow-morrow-land in a flying machine. [[spoiler: That's exactly what happens at the climax.]]
* ForcedPrizeFight: Max must participate on one against Blaster in the eponymous Thunderdome in order to get his stuff back, along with bonus water and gasoline.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Invoked by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMMRc2CF6Ho Aunty.]]
-->'''Aunty Entity:''' Do you know who I was? Nobody. Except on the day after, I was still alive. This nobody had a chance to be somebody.
** She inverts it as well, basically calling Max From Nightmare To Nobody.
--->'''Aunty Entity:''' Once cock of the walk, now a feather duster.
* FryingPanOfDoom: Scrooloose wields a metal frying pan during the final chase scene.
* FuturePrimitive: The Lost Tribe is at stone age at best. The small handful of "artifacts" they have from the pre-apocalypse are completely beyond them. Best highlighted when Max disassembles one of their spears and loots a necklace, to reveal they had a working rifle and ammo for it - just no clue what either of those objects was.
* FutureSlang: The tribal children's vocabularly is both limited and warped, making it distinct to speech patterns of every other characters.
* GenreShift: The film does this ''between its own first and second acts''. It goes from a typical post-apocalyptic DesertPunk movie to a much LighterAndSofter adventure film with YouMeddlingKids and some religious undertones about a third of the way through.
* GilliganCut: Max sees one of the children scampering after them in the desert and states, "He holds his own." Cut to Max carrying him on his back in the blazing sun.
* GodGuise: Subverted. Though the kids treat him like their messiah, Max keeps telling them that they got the wrong guy. He stills ends up dragged into their mythos simply be being there and the finale makes it clear they never really accepted the simple reality of Max not being the second coming of Captain Walker.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Neither Aunty Entity nor [=MasterBlaster=] are nice people, but Aunty's doing her best to restore some kind of civilization, and Master is trying to take care of himself and his mentally disabled friend in a hell of a world. Max is a mercenary who's trading his skills to Aunty, though he ends up helping the lost children out of kindness.
* GrimReaper: The kids have a concept of him as "Mr. Dead."
* GroinAttack: The Collector tries to attack Max with an axe during his "audition" to Aunty. It gets stuck in the floor when he misses and Max kicks under the axe-handle, forcing the end upwards to his groin.
* HandcarPursuit: Max and the tribe of desert children are racing away from Bartertown on a stolen train. One of them looks back to see a horde of vehicles led by Aunty Entity chasing them as well as her chief of guards Ironbar frantically working a handcar and keeping up with everyone. Having been knocked into a pool of pig shit last time we saw him, he's so pissed he clearly doesn't need a methane-powered vehicle.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Max buys time for the kids in the plane by hopping into a car and driving right into their pursuers, causing a huge crash. Subverted as Max jumps clear and survives the crash barely scratched, but is left behind to face Auntie's wrath. After a while of pondering she lets him live]], as she gets what she wanted anyway.
* HiddenWeapons:
** During the ExtendedDisarming sequence, Max just keeps piling up gun after gun, and then also a combat knife, a hatchet and a crossbow, all of which he apparently casually carried on himself all the time, fully concealed. Just the firearms alone would weight over 5 kilograms.
** [[spoiler: The fly-swatter that he's allowed to keep has a knife hidden in its handle]].
* HoldingOutForAHero: The children are waiting for the adults who promised to return for them after going to get help. None of them did. It's even lampshaded in the "We Don't Need Another Hero" song.
* HumiliationConga: Implied that Master did this on a regular basis with Auntie Entity.
-->'''The Master:''' Who run Bartertown?\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' Dammit, I told you, no more embargos.\\
'''The Master:''' More, Blaster. ''(power shut off)'' Who run Bartertown? [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Who... run... Bartertown?]]\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' ...You know who.\\
'''The Master:''' {{Say|It}}.\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' Master Blaster.\\
'''The Master:''' Say loud! ''(Master turns on the town loudspeakers)''\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' Master Blaster.\\
'''The Master:''' Master Blaster... what?\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' Master Blaster runs Bartertown.\\
'''The Master:''' Louder!\\
'''Auntie Entity:''' Master Blaster runs Bartertown!\\
'''The Master:''' Lift embargo.
* ImaginedInnuendo: When Aunty Entity's majordomo tells Max he's got nothing to trade, Max insists that he's got skills they can use. To this, he rather dryly replies "The brothels are full."
* IOwnThisTown: Aunty initially appears to be the uncontested ruler of Bartertown, but [=MasterBlaster=] declares a short embargo on supplying methane to the town to drive home the point that ''they'' are the true force to be reckoned with.
* IncessantMusicMadness: Some of the kids have run off. The other kids are showing Max which direction they went, and are chanting a lament in the background. Eventually, Max yells, "Stop the noise, STOP THE NOISE!"
* IndyPloy:
-->'''Max:''' So what's the plan?
-->'''Pig Killer:''' ''(laughing)'' Plan? There ain't no ''plan''!
* InevitablyBrokenRule: In the titular death match, ThereAreNoRules except for one: "two men enter, one man leaves". A rule that Max breaks when he refuses to keep fighting Blaster after finding out that Blaster is a man with Down Syndrome. This breaks the deal he had with Auntie, which leads to all of the problems he endures for the rest of the film:
-->'''Max:''' ''(to Auntie)'' This wasn't part of the Deal.\\
'''Master:''' Deal?! What do you mean, "deal"?\\
'''Auntie:''' You must have tasted it. It was in your hands. You had it all.
* InfoDump: The first 10 or 15 minutes of Max's encounter with the tribe of kids is basically one solid block of exposition, with the kids explaining the backstory of their tribe. Max is ''not'' amused, especially since the kids just won't listen to his objections.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Master gives Max a little salute during the latter's HeroicSacrifice.
* ItHasOnlyJustBegun: Master is furious when he realises Max has been hired by Aunty Entity to kill Blaster, [[BrainsAndBrawn thus removing his muscle]].
-->'''Master:''' No more methane! This place, finished!\\
'''Ironbar:''' No little man. We've only just begun. (''shoots Blaster'')
* KickTheDog: The reason for Master's downfall. He has a tendency to rub it into everyone's faces that [=MasterBlaster=] are the true rulers of Bartertown and it's clear everyone is just fed up with it by the time Max arrives to the town.
* LargeHam: Tina Turner as Auntie Entity and Edward Hodgeman as Dr. Dealgood, [[LargeHamAnnouncer the MC]] of the Thunderdome. There is also Jedediah's son, who despite his strature is chewing just as much scenery.
* LastGraspAtLife: There's a FlippingTheBird version when Ironbar is killed in a car crash at the end of the movie.
* LetThemDieHappy: In a DeletedScene, Max carries the dying Gekko to the top of a sand dune and shows him the lights of Bartertown, saying that they've found Tomorrow-Morrow-Land.
* LighterAndSofter: Notably known for being the only film in the franchise to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA, especially when you consider that the first film was a bleak dystopian revenge thriller, and its sequel about bandits trying to kill people over an oil refinery. ''Thunderdome'' starts off dark but gets lighter in tone as soon as Max is rescued by the children, and stays that way for the remaining runtime.
* ALightInTheDistance: Mentioned in the closing words.
-->'''Savannah:''' And we lights the city ... not just for him, but for all of 'em that're still out there. 'Cause we knows... there'll come a night, when they sees the distant light... and they'll be comin' home.
* LoudOfWar: Max uses a bosun's call whistle to defeat Blaster in the Thunderdome arena.
* LovelyAssistant: The girls alongside Dr. Dealgood in Thunderdome. One of them even [[Series/WheelOfFortune spins a wheel]].
* MadeOfIron: [[MeaningfulName Ironbar]] manages to survive falling off a bridge, an explosion, ''and'' a head on collision that completely obliterates his buggy.
* TheMaster: Master of [=MasterBlaster=].
* MerchantCity: Bartertown. Trading is required to be able to enter, and holding on to the deals is considered sacred and enforced by law.
* MessianicArchetype: Mad Max is seen by the children as the SecondComing of Captain Walker, complete with a Max-as-Walker picture of him spread out in [[CrucifiedHeroShot crucified form]] carrying the children away upon himself.
** ViewersAreGeniuses: That rock painting is also a ShoutOut to Deuteronomy 32:10-11 in Literature/TheBible, where the Exodus is described that way.
* MotivationOnAStick: Max is sent into "exile" hooded and tied up on a horse with a small jar of water hanging in front of its head.
* MrExposition:
** Dr. Dealgood's an unusually effective example -- not only is he filling in the audience, but also Max. His bombastic style helps.
---> Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and Girls!... Dyin' time's here!
** "The Tell". Max encourages the InfoDump by [[ReversePsychology challenging them that maybe they got the story wrong]].
* MrFanservice: Aside from Mel Gibson, Tom Jennings, aka Slake, the leader of The Ones Who Stayed, a muscular college age guy in nothing but a loincloth.
* NeckLift:
** Blaster does it to Max after Max tries to ignore Master's order for him to disarm the truck's booby-trap. And holds him there while Master chews him out and repeats the demand. When Max fails to be impressed, Master decides to have the [[spoiler:town's electricity supply]] choked instead. EMBARGO ON!
** Becomes PlayedForDrama the next time they have a confrontation.
-->'''Master:''' Blaster, [[CountingToThree in three seconds]], break neck. One...two...th--
-->''(ClickHello from Aunty's enforcers [[ConvenientlyTimedAttackFromBehind intervene just in time]])''
* NoBikesInTheApocalypse: Averted. While there are gas-powered vehicles, they are restricted to the elite; most of the Bartertown citizens are either on animal-driven vehicles or velocipedes, including the fellow hawking (irradiated) water.
* NoHoldsBarredContest: Rules cannot be broken in Thunderdome, since [[ThereAreNoRules there are none]].
* NoNameGiven:
** Max's name isn't known to Bartertown's public, forcing Dr. Dealgood to announce him at the Thunderdome as "The Man With No Name" in a ShoutOut to ''Film/DollarsTrilogy''.
** Many of the character names aren't spoken in the film, and are [[AllThereInTheManual only listed in the credts]].
* NotWhatISignedOnFor: Max says this after seeing Blaster's true face and refuses to kill him.
* TheOathBreaker: Aunty hires Max to kill Blaster, but Max refuses to FinishHim when a DramaticUnmask shows the GiantMook to be a simpleton. Because a contract is SeriousBusiness in Bartertown, Aunty is able to use the law to [[YouHaveFailedMe punish Max for his failure to follow through]].
* OhCrap:
** During the Thunderdome fight, Blaster stops dead in his tracks when Max gets his hands on the chainsaw. It shifts over to Max when the chainsaw runs out of gas after only a minute of so of revving its engine.
** Max has a moment when he nearly kills [[spoiler: an unmasked Blaster]].
** Later...
-->'''Jed Jr.:''' This is a stick up! Anybody moves and they're dead meat!
-->''(Max and company stare in disbelief, then look behind at the oncoming horde of Aunty's men.)''
-->'''Jed Jr.:''' ''(wide-eyed)'' Oh... I think we're '''ALL''' dead meat!
* OnThree: Max has to yank an arrow out of Pigkiller's leg, says they'll do it on the count of three, and of course does it on one.
-->'''Pigkiller:''' ...what happened to two?
* OneBookAuthor: Despite being one of the biggest pop singers of the 20th century, this was Tina Turner's only major starring role in a movie (unless one also counts her appearance as part of the ensemble cast in ''Film/{{Tommy}}'' as the Acid Queen). Though generally considered a good performance, she would not appear in any more feature films.
* PostApunkalypticArmor: Worn by Aunty's {{Mooks}}, being a mish-mash of sporting gear, BDSM suits, car tires, animal harnesses (and hides) and forged pieces of steel.
* ProfaneLastWords: TheDragon's car crashes and explodes, the wreckage stirs, TheDragon raises his middle finger.
* ThePromisedLand: The kids are waiting for Captain Walker to come and fly them to theirs, called Tomorrow-morrow Land. [[spoiler:They eventually settle for the irradiated ruins of Sydney.]]
* PsychopathicManchild: Blaster. The hulking brute turns out to have Down syndrome and his face-concealing helmet exists predominately to hide the fact. As Master points out, Blaster has the mind of a child but will kill without hesitation.
* QuicksandSucks: The Wasteland is filled with those. One take Max's horse, and later [[spoiler: some of the children]].
* RhymesOnADime: Auntie's laws ("Bust a deal, face the wheel"), but there's a Fridge Brilliance to it: they're easy to remember in a post-apocalyptic society where anyone born AfterTheEnd is likely illiterate.
* RingRingCrunch: A kid smashes a ringing clock he found with a hammer because he has no idea what the ringing sound means.
* RousingSpeech: A rare villainous example in Auntie, who pulls it off twice:
** First she turns the Thunderdome crowd against Max:
-->'''Auntie:''' What's this? What's this?!! Do you think I don't know the law? Wasn't it me who wrote it? And I say this man has broken the law. Right or wrong, we had a deal. And the law says, "Bust a deal, face the wheel."
-->'''Crowd:''' ''(chanting)'' Bust a deal, face the wheel... Bust a deal, face the wheel... Bust a deal, face the wheel...
** Then she prevents the complete collapse of Bartertown and sets the people after the escaping party:
-->'''Auntie:''' Bartertown! Listen to me! Where are you gonna run? Where are you gonna hide? Listen to me! Bartertown will live! Find the little man. Bring him back to me. . .alive! We will rebuild! For those who took him... no mercy!
-->''(Crowd cheers)''
* SacredScripture: Not a paper book, but the tribe of children paid comparable homage to a collection of photos they could examine with an old Viewmaster slide-viewer. When someone showed them how to work an old phonograph -- with a language instruction record that began "Listen and repeat" -- they repeated the record's words as if they, too, were sacred.
* SecondComing: Max is mistaken for the second coming of Captain Walker, a pilot who left children of a plane crash behind with the promise that one day he will return to take them to [[ThePromisedLand "Tomorrow-morrow Land"]], or back to civilization as it once was.
* ShouldersOfDoom: Worn by Dr. Dealgood under a three-piece suit, which combined with his height gives him a near-grotesque but still imposing look.
* ShoutOut:
** Max stumbles across a tribe of children who call him [[Literature/RiddleyWalker "the Walker"]]. Legend goes the film originated as a straight-up adaptation until someone wondered what would happen if Mad Max stumbled across the society from the book, at which point the Bartertown sequences -- AKA the part of the film everyone remembers -- were plotted out as a framing device.
** Pigkiller says "[[Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension No matter where you go, there you are]]" when Ironbar has him at gunpoint, much to his confusion.
* ShovelStrike: Ironbar attacks Max with a shovel. Scrooloose then takes a swing on a rope, and kicks him into [[RuleOfPool a vat of pigshit]].
* ShroudedInMyth: Captain G. L. Walker was a real guy. He might have heroically (crash) landed his jet airliner in a complete wasteland and even led the survivors for some time... but by the time Max ends up in the oasis, Walker a sacred figure of the homegrown messianic cult, with the teens and children living there treating both the original Walker and Max as god-like figures.
* SnakeOilSalesman: Max encounters a water merchant upon arriving in Bartertown, who tries to sell him water. Max runs a Geiger counter over his wares, only to discover that it's quite heavily contaminated.
* SolidGoldPoop: Bartertown is fueled by methane, a byproduct of fecal decomposition, for which a giant pig farm is kept in caves below it. As a direct result, killing a pig is a grevious offense.
* StopWorshippingMe: Max is completely fed up with all the children taking him for the second coming of their mythical Captain Walker and routinely tells them in no uncertain terms that he's not the guy and won't participate in their crazy antics. It is played for laughs time and again, with dramatic music swelling, with the Lost Tribe waiting for their salvation... only for Max to just shrug and walk in a different direction.
* SwordOverHead: Inverted at the end, [[spoiler:with Max surrounded by Auntie Entity and her armed goons. She lets him go]].
* TakeMyHand: A [[ChainOfPeople chain of children]] are trying to save one of their own from being swallowed up by the same quicksand that earlier claimed Max's dead horse. The human chain is about to break when Max arrives, and he saves most of them.
* TeenageWasteland: Max discovers a fertile valley where the children of plane crash survivors have been left alone while the adults went to find help. It being AfterTheEnd, there was no help to be had, and the kids wound up having to raise themselves (there's a brief glimpse of bones in the children's shrines, indicating some adults had stayed with them but later died). They're actually doing fairly well, all things considered, although their limited information about the outside world has led to a rather bizarre belief system.
* TooGoodToBeTrue: But only because The Collector knows [[TheDreaded who Max is going to fight.]]
-->'''The Collector:''' Perhaps you've got something to trade after all.
-->'''Max:''' Keep talking...
-->'''The Collector:''' 24 hours of your life. In exchange you'll get back what was stolen.
-->'''Max:''' Sounds like a bargain.
-->'''The Collector:''' It's not.
* TooImportantToWalk: Master goes everywhere on the back of Blaster.
* TragicVillain: An odd example in [=MasterBlaster=]. The two have been forged by their circumstances into a single, ruthlessly efficient, GeniusBruiser in order to climb to the top of the heap. Alone each would be an easy target for exploitation in a CrapsackWorld, but together they can intimidate and manipulate any threat into submission. It becomes clear over the course of the film that there is genuine affection between the two, and that everything they do is to protect one another. Even the helmet seemingly made to dehumanize Blaster [[spoiler: is revealed to be hiding the child-like features of a man with Downs Syndrome.]]
* VetinariJobSecurity: Master has this. Justified in that he is likely one of only a handful of remaining people on Earth with a working knowledge of civil engineering, industrial machinery, large-scale power generation, and chemistry. As a resut, Auntie needs him alive and makes it clear to her enforcers that whatever happens, the little man must survive.
* VillainousBreakdown:
** The Collector seems to have lost the will to live as Bartertown blows up around him.
** Also the Master between the moments when Max defeats Blaster and the deal with Auntie is revealed.
* VillainousValor: Ironbar, especially when hanging off the side of the train in the finale. His tenacity is truly impressive, but it also explains how he became the top enforcer for Auntie.
* WalkingArmory: Max is ordered to disarm upon entering a secure area and it takes a full minute for him to drop all his weapons.
* WaitHere: Max tells the children to wait out in the desert while he slips into Bartertown and rescues Master. Irresistibly drawn by the lights of civilization, they follow him in.
* WastelandElder: The epilogue shows that Savannah became one.
* WeaponForIntimidation: Max's shotgun. The only time it's ever used is to fire off a warning shot. It is aso implied with Max's arsenal. He might or might not have rounds for those weapons, but after he casually shoots at one of the Bartertown guards, nobody is too eager to check.
* WeaponTwirling: Max sticks a pistol in the face of The Collector, then shotguns off the fancy headdress of a mook who comes at him twirling twin knives. The mook slinks off with a pensive look and TheDragon moves in instead; Collector wisely signals everyone to back off until they can come to a more civilized arrangement.
* WheelOfDecisions: "Bust a deal, face the wheel." One that is filled with all sorts of punishments -- and [[HopeSpot one chance at complete acquittal]].
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Max asks Auntie Entity why she doesn't just have one of her guards kill the man he's being hired to kill. [[WeUsedToBeFriends She says that Masterblaster is "almost family"]] while the Collector talks of "subtleties"--likely the fact that now Auntie has reestablished the Rule of Law in Bartertown, she can't afford to break it herself otherwise it just becomes ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem.
* WireFu: The combatants in Thunderdome are attached to elastic ropes. At one point Max gains a temporary advantage by cutting Blaster's ropes with his spear.
* WouldHitAGirl: Max delivers a knockout punch to a teenage girl. He hesitates beforehand, but goes ahead and decks her.
* WouldntHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Max is about to kill Blaster when he knocks his helmet off and is stunned to realize that the giant brute has Down Syndrome. Master pleads that Blaster has "the mind of a child". Max apparently considers killing a mentally disabled man to be on the same level as killing a child, and is horrified that he nearly went through with it. Despite knowing he'll get in a lot of trouble for breaking his deal with Aunty, Max still refuses to kill him.]]
* YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe: "Methane cometh from pig shit."
* YouExclamation: The film opens with Max having his vehicle stolen by Jedediah the Pilot, setting all the events in motion. By the time he catches up with the thief a horde of post-nuclear desert punks are on his tail, so Max has more urgent priorities than revenge.
-->'''Max:''' ''You!''\\
'''Jedediah:''' Me?\\
'''Max:''' You. It's your lucky day.\\
'''Jedediah:''' It is?\\
'''Max:''' Uh-huh. You got a plane.\\
'''Jedediah:''' I have? (''[[ImplausibleDeniability sound of plane starting up outside]]'')\\
'''Max:''' [[ImpliedDeathThreat It might just save your life.]]\\
'''Jedediah:''' It will?\\
'''Max:''' Uh-huh.
* YouNoTakeCandle:
** The tribe of children had only partial educations from their shellshocked parents before being abandoned. Their limited vocabulary, in spite of their intelligence, is an uncomfortable reminder to Max how much the world is still losing.
** Master also speaks like this, but it's heavily implied to be a subversion -- he's highly intelligent, but talks down to everyone, partly for Blaster's benefit. The minute Blaster is taken down, Master rushes to him, crying out, "No! He has the mind of a ''child''...!"
----
->''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Come on, what's all this talk about Mad Max? Can't we get beyond Thunderdome?]]'' ([[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad Well, in 2015 we finally]] ''[[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad did.]]'')