Character index of the Mad Max film franchise.
- Mad Max (1979)
- Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
- Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
- Mad Max: Fury Road / Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2015/2024)
Max Rockatansky (first three films)
The Road Warrior.
Played by: Mel Gibson
Dubbed by: Patrick Floersheim (European French, Mad Max and Mad Max 2), Jacques Frantz (European French, Beyond Thunderdome)
A road police officer in an Australian town during the dying years of civilization, happily married to his wife Jessie with an infant son. After their deaths at the hand of the Toecutter and his biker gang in the first film, he begins Walking the Earth, surviving the apocalypse to become a legendary figure known as the Road Warrior.
- Arch-Enemy: The Toecutter, the biker who killed his family.
- Awesome Aussie: The definitive example in film.
- Badass Driver: A classic movie example. Due to the nature of the franchise, it's practically a given. It's notable in the first film how easily he takes out the vast majority of the biker gang in one fell swoop and how he handles the truck in the second during the final chase, even able to fire a shotgun one handed while driving. In the first film, the only way Bubba and the Toecutter are able to get the drop on him is by drawing him away from his vehicle.
- Captain Crash: For someone in a postapocalyptic wasteland where having a vehicle is king, he really doesn't have any luck with cars. Counting the Magnum Opus from the game, his car has been wrecked five times.
- Crazy-Prepared: Keeps his vehicle rigged with explosives to prevent anyone from siphoning off his fuel and a weapon near the explosives in case anyone tries to get him to disarm them.
- Dented Iron: His injuries keep adding up over the films and never completely heal. Most notably, the gunshot wound to his leg in the first film leaves him with a limp and requiring a leg brace in the second.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In the first film Max loses everything, his family, his career and friends, his humanity and civilization itself. In the second he starts finding his way again, reluctantly helping the settlers and forming passing relationships with other human beings once more but still unable to re-join their society. In the 3rd he refuses to kill Blaster and when he finds the tribe of lost children he decides to stay with them, finally finding something to live for and having a future once more, at last recovering who he once was.
- The Expy With No Name: A badass drifter who talks as little as possible, wears a pistol-type shotgun in a low-slung holster, and wanders the Earth helping people despite himself. Lampshaded when he's introduced as The Man With No Name in Beyond Thunderdome.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: From the second film onwards, his jacket is missing its right sleeve and has a shoulder pad on the right shoulder.
- Friend to All Children: Perhaps it's due to the loss of Sprog, but any time he encounters children, he is usually protective of them. He gives the Feral Kid a music box and protects him during the tanker chase in The Road Warrior and, reluctantly at first, goes after the kids who left their oasis in Beyond Thunderdome.
- Handicapped Badass:
- In Fury Road. Max has PTSD that causes hallucinations, and often those hallucinations will pop up right in the middle of a fight. He keeps going regardless, but they often hinder him (for example, one causes him to let go of a grate and drop right into the group of War Boys chasing him).
- At the end of the first film as well, since Bubba Zanetti blows out one of his legs and runs over his right arm. These injuries never fully heal and stack up with the damage to his eye late in the second film.
- Heartbroken Badass: Precisely one of the core themes of the movie is just what an empty man Max is as a result of losing his family.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: His iconic MFP uniform is a leather police outfit, which is a result of the MFP being one of the last standing vanguards of civilization's crumbling remains and therefore had to look at least somewhat imposing. In the first film, Mel Gibson was the only one actually kitted out in leather due to budget constraints.
- He Who Fights Monsters: In the first film, he's afraid of becoming this trope and it's the main reason he keeps trying to leave the MFP. By The Road Warrior, the refinery settlers initially see him as an opportunistic mercenary and Papagallo calls him out on his desire to be alone. It should be noted as well that, like many of the raiders, Max dresses in black, a stark contrast to the white clad refinery settlers.
- Hero's Classic Car: Max drives a modified 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe referred to as a "V8 Interceptor".
- Iconic Outfit: His appearance from the second movie. It is so memetic practically every post-apocalyptic fiction features at least one badass wearing a similar suit or a costume with obvious influences from Rockatansky's dress. In particular Fallout and Fist of the North Star are among the most obvious examples featuring important characters in the outfit, such as the latter's protagonist Kenshiro. By the end of Fury Road it's one of the very few things he still has left - he makes a point to take it back when he loses it early on.
- I Have Many Names: Red Baron version. He's known to different characters in each film by a different label: The Road Warrior in Road Warrior, Raggedy Man, Captain Walker, and The Man With No Name in Beyond Thunderdome and Fool and Bloodbag in Fury Road. In the game, he's referred to as both the Driver and the Saint by Chumbucket.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Road Warrior paints him as this. He starts off only giving a shit about his own needs, but ends up helping those in trouble around him as the need arises. Fury Road takes this even further, as he's outright hostile to Furiosa and the Wives for a considerable amount of time before finally helping them out. Additionally, in the game, Max is only looking out for himself for the vast majority of the main story, only beginning to care about Hope and Glory in the final few missions.
- The Quiet One: Begins towards the end of the first film when he loses Jessie and Sprog, but is especially evident in the second film when he's wandering alone and only speaks when necessary. Every movie sees little dialog from him. Subverted in Beyond Thunderdome, where he's a lot more vocal.
- Red Baron: He's not actually referred to as Mad Max anywhere in the films (although Johnny ends the first film yelling "Yer Mad!"), so the Road Warrior fits this trope better, as it's what the Feral Kid refers to him as.
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: His preferred weapon. It's simple, requires little maintenance, has relatively common ammo in a Scavenger World and is absolutely devastating. Although its scavenged ammo has a tendency towards failing.
- Small Role, Big Impact: In-universe, this burnt-out wanderer unknowingly winds up being instrumental in the formation of post-apocalyptic civilization by being the right man in the right place. The refinery settlers, Gyro Captain, and the Feral Kid of The Road Warrior go on to found the Great Northern Tribe, while the children and other survivors of Beyond Thunderdome go on to establish a community in Sydney. While Max doesn't get to join either group, it's implied that he will remembered by future generations as a legend.
- Still Wearing the Old Colors: Wears his MFP uniform long after he leaves the force and civilization behind. In the second film, it's unrecognizable as a police uniform, as it's tattered, minus a badge and a sleeve and he's patched it up with a shoulder pad and knee brace. By Fury Road, it's one of the few iconic items left in his possession (and one that he fights to get back).
- Super-Reflexes: He can grab snakes with ease. Lampshaded by the Gyro Captain who notes that he never saw a man beat a snake before.
- Terse Talker: Not only he hardly talks, it's usually in short sentences\words. Subverted in Beyond Thunderdome, where he speaks a lot more.
- Vigilante Man: Technically, he's this at the end of the first film, as he's chasing down criminals using stolen MFP equipment.
- Walking the Earth: After taking out the Toecutter's gang, he begins wandering the wastes instead of going home, which likely saved his life when the nuclear war later broke out and the bombs fell.
