Max Varnel (21 March 1925 – 15 January 1996) was a French-born Australian film and television director who worked primarily in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Born Max Le Bozec in Paris, France, he was the son of the film director Marcel Varnel. He began his career as an assistant director of The Magic Box (1951) and continued in this role for films including The Card (1952), Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)

His directing credits encompass a series of B movies, including Moment of Indiscretion (1958), A Woman Possessed (1958), Top Floor Girl (1959), Web of Suspicion (1959), The Child and the Killer (1959), and Crash Drive (1959).

Varnel's television credits include The Vise, The Cheaters, Softly Softly, and The Troubleshooters in the UK, and Skippy, Glenview High, The Young Doctors, and Neighbours in Australia, where he emigrated in the late 1960s.