Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Never before had I been half so surprised at an Academy Best Picture nomination. I hadn't seen this one yet, but I had seen Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which didn't seem to belong anywhere near elite cinematic discussion. It wasn't badly done per se, just...out there. Possibly the ugliest (not grossest, most violent, or most depraved, but big on all three) movie I ever watched from start to finish, without any obvious connection with reality to make up for that. I figured that when you've seen one Mad Max entry, you've seen them all. Nothing short of the Oscars could bring me back for more.

OK, I suppose I should give the series some credit for realism by sci-fi standards. None of the premises are impossible under modern science. It's just a near-future dystopia in which punks and a few innocents race across the desert in search of scarce resources -- originally gasoline above all, now water. There are the sorts of deviations from physics you expect from action flicks, of course, but the part I find hardest to believe is that the bulk of survivors would gravitate toward a severe lack of taste in fashion, vehicles, and basic mores.

Having lost his family, Max (Tom Hardy, suitably replacing Mel Gibson) has become a slightly unhinged antihero, evidently trying not to care about anyone but himself. This does not stop him from getting roped into conflicts and taking the less blatantly evil side time and again. In this case, the enemy is a water tycoon called Immortan Joe, and the people in need of a champion are his involuntary harem.