Mad Max 2 (1981)

Known in the US as The Road Warrior, this is the film that invented the look every post-apocalypse movie has borrowed since: leather, scavenged cars, a fuel compound under siege in the outback near Broken Hill. Miller drew on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and you can feel it in how Max becomes a legend told by someone else. The closing tanker chase is the one to watch for, a sustained run of real vehicles and real stunts that set the bar Fury Road would later try to clear. If you only know Fury Road, this is the direct ancestor.