Let’s start with the basics. The following are films that Box Office Prophets has voted the Best Picture each of the past 14 years. Starting with The Royal Tenenbaums in our inaugural awards, our list of Best Picture winners includes About a Boy, Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Serenity, The Queen, The Bourne Ultimatum, WALL-E, Up, The Social Network, The Artist, Silver Linings Playbook, Gravity, and Whiplash. This list should crystallize your opinion regarding how well you line up with our staff with regards to cinema. As the founder of BOP, I’m extremely proud of the overall quality of our voting over the years.

2016 is the same in this regard. For the second consecutive year, the battle for first place was hotly contested. Four films remained in competition until the final two votes, and the ultimate outcome remained undecided until the last ballot. In the end, the title that led throughout the voting ultimately dropped to third place while the feature named on the most overall ballots fell just short of victory. The winner, fittingly enough, received easily the most first place votes, which isn’t always the case in our tabulation system, one that rewards quantity of ballot selections as heavily as placement.

Mad Max: Fury Road is our choice as the Best Picture this year. Our voters voted it the best film almost twice as much as any selection. In the process, it became the film with the most number one picks since Gravity, demonstrating just how passionate our staff was about George Miller’s return to his directorial roots.

What caused us to laud Mad Max: Fury Road over all other films? I have a simple theory on this topic. Think about all the complexities of modern cinema, all the sweeping story arcs that viewers find equal parts engaging and perplexing. Now consider the fourth Mad Max adventure. Our hero starts in one place. Then, he drives somewhere else for a while. Finally, he turns around and heads back home. That’s the entire story structure of Fury Road, yet it totally works.

The reason why is that Miller delivers a kind of Master’s Class in conflict. From the opening moments of the movie, the titular lead is in danger. In literally every sequence from start to finish, he faces danger in some form, starting with kidnapping. Later, Max escapes and makes his way to an 18-wheeler. In front of him is every man’s fantasy, a harem of women so beautiful, the whole situation seems like a mirage. What does Max care about? They have drinking water. These subtle slices of misdirection permeate throughout the sublime action, with Miller sprinkling sparks of creativity and innovation along the way.

In an age when people in capes and spandex dominate the cinematic landscape, Mad Max: Fury Road subjects viewers to a grimy world full of hatred and spite. It’s the film world equivalent of Smells Like Teen Spirit singlehandedly assaulting the entire Hair Band music era. For this reason, 36 years after the introduction of Mad Max as a character, he somehow feels bold and new again. Movie lovers had to wait 30 years for a new Mad Max movie, but Fury Road was worth the wait. That’s why it’s our staff’s choice as Best Picture of the year.

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