Anya Taylor-Joy's $168M Sci-Fi Masterpiece Is Officially the Best Movie Nobody Watched

Published Sep 20, 2026, 4:00 AM EDT

Rotten Tomatoes | Letterboxd | Metacritic

Carolyn Jenkins is a voracious consumer of film and television. She graduated from Long Island University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Producing where she learned the art of character, plot, and structure. The best teacher is absorbing media and she spends her time reading about different worlds from teen angst to the universe of Stephen King.

Sign in to your Collider account

There are those who are meant to die historic on the Fury Road and those who aren’t. Ultimately, that is the big difference between George Miller’s high-octane thrill ride, Mad Max: Fury Road, and the slow-burn and more fruitful prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The title says it all. Anya Taylor-Joy’s underrated movie, Furiosa, was set in the world of Mad Max, but it would be something else entirely.

That is what viewers missed and why they didn’t get to the theater in droves, as opposed to the reaction to its predecessor. Furiosa had always been about cultivating something new, while Fury Road was a fast-paced chase to the finish line. Both movies have their merits, but only Furiosa felt the burn of a box office disappointment. The Mad Max prequel was a sci-fi masterpiece even though no one watched it.

‘Furiosa’ Was Misunderstood When It First Premiered

Anticipation was high when George Miller announced that a Furiosa movie was in the works. The best action movie of all time, Fury Road, had come out a decade earlier, and Charlize Theron had been the shining star as the liberator of sex slaves, the Imperator Furiosa. It took some time for the next adventure to materialize, but it was well worth the wait when it did. Regrettably, most people who went into the theater expected another pedal-to-the-metal action movie, screaming down the highway, but that was never what Furiosa was supposed to be.

One of the best epic sci-fi movies of the 21st century was a tragic origin story about unity and a different way to get revenge. As the title suggests, this is a saga film that charts Furiosa’s journey into the character everyone knows and loves. Viewers finally see the famous Green Place of her youth, from which Furiosa is ripped out as a child. Enduring the death of her mother, she does everything she can to survive.

Imprisoned by Chris Hemsworth’s outrageously evil character, Dementus, she always finds a way to survive until she officially enters Immorten Joe’s service and climbs her way to being a Praetorian. At its heart, Furiosa is a character study that actually puts Fury Road to shame. The slow-burn storytelling defines the titular character in a truly masterful piece of sci-fi.

Had Furiosa not come after Fury Road, it likely would have been embraced as revolutionary. Anya Taylor-Joy is visceral in a story that galvanizes a true leader. She nurtures a bloodthirsty vengeance against Dementus for years until she finds the perfect way to quite literally sow those seeds at the end of Furiosa. That isn't to say that the movie is totally lacking in action, either.

Furiosa and Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) go on a rampaging battle against Dementus’ control. The brutal consequences only cement Furiosa’s resolve. Viewers get to see her carry out her rage in a way that women are often not allotted in contemporary fiction. The immersive sci-fi world of the apocalyptic Australia allows her to seek justice in a satisfying way that also nurtures the women around her. Furiosa has the perfect Miller touch while being something completely new compared to Fury Road. In that sense, it also further reinforces what works so well about the 2015 action film and allows it to endure. Furiosa is a masterpiece, if only theatergoers had given it a chance.