How Many Oscars Did ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Win? 2016 Academy Awards Cleaned Up By Best Picture Loser

Mad Max: Fury Road‘s massive six Oscar wins showed that even among the stuffy world of the Academy Awards, George Miler’s film was a crowd-pleasing smash hit.

• Film Editing
• Sound Mixing
• Costume Design
• Sound Editing
• Production Design
• Makeup and Hairstyling

Sure, Mad Max might have lost out on the big categories it managed to score a nomination for like directing and cinematography, but the fact that it was even nominated for Best Picture was shocking. Fury Road ticks off all of the things Oscar hates. It’s a genre film, an action film, a movie that unabashedly chooses style over substance.

But as many critics pointed out, Mad Max is an art film. It has a message about feminism and the environment that isn’t so heavy-handed that it can’t just be a message about freedom and conscientious. Fury Road, for all its lack of Oscars-baiting, doubled The Revenant‘s wins and tripled those of Best Picture winner Spotlight.

Anyone who saw the newest Mad Max incarnation knows why. Fury Road was the ultimate movie for the masses. A perfect hybrid of adrenalin rush and intoxicating vision. Even though anyone who really knows how the Oscars pick their winners could never see it happening, a lot of pens hovering over Oscar ballots probably spent an abnormal amount of time hovering above Mad Max.

Yet as the Academy Awards rolled on, it seemed more and more likely that Fury Road could break the mold. Oscar after Oscar went to the film. When it was up to six, Louis C.K. even cracked a joke about it winning best documentary short — a category it was clearly not even nominated for. Still, it got a laugh, and he wasn’t the only one to poke fun at Mad Max‘s success.

AND THE BEST ACTOR GOES TO

*Leo starts to get up*

THE ENTIRE CAST OF MAD MAX INCLUDING THE PERSON WITH THE FLAME THROWER GUITAR

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) February 29, 2016

Biggest winner tonight so far: ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ with 6 #Oscars pic.twitter.com/tD7w4ZCJ1A

— 89.3 KPCC (@KPCC) February 29, 2016

Still, the phrase “crowdpleaser” isn’t one that necessarily indicates that Mad Max won over everyone. Even in the group of almost universally bewitched audience members, there’s one heckler who is convinced that the popcorn was a better investment than the film they are stuck watching. For a select few, Fury Road seemed to be that movie — and they weren’t happy that it was picking up Oscars left and right on Sunday evening.

That frozen dinner roll commercial is more entertaining to me than I expect mad max would be… #Oscars #Oscar2016

— Dana Wright (@RadioDana) February 29, 2016

I heard mad max is winning a ton of stuff… Did I watch a different mad max than everyone else?

— Smiting Fatty (@BrighamKindell) February 29, 2016

I still don’t want to see Mad Max.

— Mick Shaffer (@mickshaffer) February 29, 2016

Yet as those Mad Max haters emerged from the back of the cinema to throw concessions at fellow moviegoers, a group of defenders also stepped forward. After all, Fury Road was the 20th highest grossing picture of last year. Oscars or not, it developed a cult of new fans, and that’s not even touching on the crew that it walked into 2015 with an strong sense of adoration from its classic first two movies of the trilogy.

There is no bad Mad Max movie imo. They were all good. That’s rare. Rambo only other franchise I can think of where I liked them all.

— Coach Burns (@CoachBurns2) February 29, 2016

Do you think Mad Max: Fury Road deserved how many Oscars it won?

[Image via Getty Images]