Mad Max: Fury Road is the 4th installment in the Mad Max franchise, written and directed by George Miller. The movie was slated to be shot, just like the first three, in the Australian deserts that suited the dystopian, barren landscape of the movie. However, an unexpected rainy season caused the desert into a beautiful spread of flowers. The movie then had to be shot in the beautiful Namibian deserts.

The story follows the warrior Imperator Furiosa (played by South African-born actress Charlize Theron) who leads enslaved apocalypse survivors in a daring escape from a tyrannical ruler with the help of Max Rockatansky (played by Tom Hardy).

The popular biopic of American civil rights leader Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington and directed by Spike Lee, was filmed in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and South Africa. The part of the movie where Malcolm X embarks on a pilgrimage to Mecca was filmed at the Mohammed Ali Mosque (known as the Alabaster Mosque) in Egypt’s capital, Cairo.

The beautiful deserts and souks of Morocco featured in the epic historical drama Gladiator, starring Russell Crow as the main character, Maximus. The scene where Maximus is taken as a slave to train as a gladiator was filmed at the fortified Kasbah, Ait Benhaddou. Other blockbusters that were filmed in Marrakech include Game of Thrones, Sex In The City 2 and Mission Impossible.

Star Wars, shot in the 1990s, is one of the biggest movie franchises ever. The Saharan landscapes of Southern Tunisia house many of Star Wars sets, some abandoned and some repurposed. Southern Tunisia's Berber architecture of fortified granaries called ksour caught the eye of director and the fictional village of Tatooine in George Lucas's Star Wars films was inspired by Tatouine. The Skywalker farm buildings were left there after filming and have since attracted thousands of Star Wars fans to the area.

Beasts of No Nation, featuring Idris Elba and break out star, Abraham Attah, follows the life experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war in a West African country. The movie was filmed in Ghana after the director and screenplay writer of the movie Cary Fukunaga decided on the country as the main location over South Africa to maintain the story’s authenticity to the novel.