With the release of Spectre, I’ve decided to do a full
ranking of the Bond movies.
28. Octopussy
1983
Roger Moore
D: John Glen
**********
One of the more forgettable Bonds. The
only really memorable things about this
entry are the buzzsaw yo-yo and the fact that Bond dresses up like a
clown (a nuclear bomb was about to go off, so he dressed up like a sad
clown). Exiled Prince Guy may be the most forgettable
Bond villain in the franchise.
27. For Your Eyes
Only
1981
Roger Moore
D: John Glen
**********
It has its moments, but it’s pretty dull. The plot seems underdeveloped despite its
plodding runtime. The villain is only
memorable in that he’s played by Julian Glover, whom I know from stuff. The subplot involving his ice-skating client
is particularly pointless. I was
promised from hype that I’d get a deconstruction of revenge movies, but Bond
only half-heartedly discourages the Bond girl (a relatively strong one to the
movie’s credit) with a platitude, and her revenge is taken from her. This is hypocritical
considering how the first scene involves Bond’s gleefully (and
anticlimactically) killing Blofeld after paying his respects to his dead
wife. I get the feeling that the
franchise at the time was just a way to see if people would watch the same
movie over and over again. While not as
maddeningly wrong as Wolfen, For Your
Eyes Only was bland enough to supplant that movie as my least favorite of
1981.
26. Moonraker
Roger Moore
1979
D: Lewis Gilbert
**********
Some memorable parts, but a very slow watch and a
pathetic attempt to ride Star Wars’
coattails. Oddly enough, Jaws’
redemptive relationship may be one of the more compelling romances in the
series.
25. Thunderball
Sean Connery
1965
D: Terence Young
**********
Raw Footage: The
Movie. Though it started out okay,
it’s one of the most poorly-paced and dull movies I’ve ever sat through. Then again, I was watching this with a group
of people, resulting in a reinforcement loop of our complaining about how
boring the movie was. That’s probably
why it’s so low on the list.
24. License to
Kill
1989
Timothy Dalton
D: John Glen
**********
Another attempt to make Bond serious, but it lacks any of
the style and fun the franchise is known for.
It seems more like a generic, forgettable revenge flick than a true Bond
film. Timothy Dalton, however, is an
underrated Bond.
23. Die Another
Day
2002
Pierce Brosnan
D: Lee Tamahori
**********
It has some fun moments, but it’s way too silly and
over-the-top.
22. Live and Let
Die
1973
Roger Moore
D: Guy Hamilton
**********
Standard Roger Moore fare with a Blaxploitation
twist. Some style and a couple memorable
characters (Tee Hee and Baron Samedi), but mostly dull. I never thought I would be so bored by a
chase scene. That boat chase lasted over
twenty minutes.
21. Casino Royale
1967
David Niven (Non-EON)
D: Ken Hughes, Jon Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert
Parrish, Val Guest, Richard Talmadge
**********
One of the most visually stylish Bond movies, but it got
killed by poor pacing, pointless sideplots, and cringeworthy attempts at humor
that far outnumbered the good jokes.
Watch Austin Powers instead.
20. On Her
Majesty’s Secret Service
1969
George Lazenby
D: Peter R. Hunt
**********
Gets a point for attempting to add some depth to the character,
but it was pretty underwhelming. George
Lazenby is awkward as Bond, but I prefer him over Roger Moore.
19. The World Is
Not Enough
1999
Pierce Brosnan
D: Michael Apted
**********
When I saw this as a 14-year-old, it was my favorite Bond
movie. But now that I get the bad double
entendres, I find it irritating because there are so damn many of them. Shame,
because it’s an otherwise fun movie. I
think Renard is an underrated villain.
Christmas Jones isn’t the worst
Bond girl, but she probably gets a lot of flak because the movie was made in
1999, when people should have known better, and immediately followed two movies
that featured rather strong protagonists.
18. The Man With
the Golden Gun
1974
Roger Moore
D: Guy Hamilton
**********
It’s an okay movie with some moments of style, but it had
a bit too much goofiness and an anticlimactic ending. If he had more screentime, JW Pepper (Clifton
James) would win the Penguin Award for characters who single-handedly ruined
their own movies. GoldenEye should have had a multiplayer feature in which the winner
was whoever hot to kill an NPC JW the most number of times. Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) was an
interesting villain who deserved a better movie.
17. Never Say
Never Again
1983
Sean Connery (Non-EON)
D: Irvin Kershner
**********
Irvin Kershner went from making the best sequel ever made
to making, well, RoboCop 2. Never
Say Never Again is somewhere in between.
It’s basically a flawed but more watchable remake of Thunderball.
16. The Living
Daylights
1987
Timothy Dalton
D: John Glen
**********
Not particularly good, but it did have a pretty good
chase scene. The movie features
something that makes every Northrop F-5 that has ever been passed off as a MiG in
a movie feel better about itself: a Russian C-130. To make things worse, there’s an RAF C-130
earlier in the movie!
15. Spectre
2015
Daniel Craig
D: Sam Mendes
**********
Made the mistake of concluding the reboot like a trilogy. Then again even the worst Craig Bond is still watchable. I didn't like
how they tried to contrive a connection between Spectre and Silva, who
seemed to be working on his own. I liked Silva because he was a villain
who achieves his goal in the end. This movie might have demoted him to
an unreliable henchman.
14. No Time to Die
2021
Daniel Craig
D: Cary Joji Fukunaga
**********
Another mess, but Rami Malek is born to play a creepy, megalomaniacal Bond villain.
13. Casino Royale
(Climax!)
1954
Barry Nelson
D: William H. Brown, Jr.
**********
Decent enough for what it was, but it’s a little dated
and the ending is very watered-down. Barry
Nelson is pretty good, and anything with Peter Lorre in it isn’t all bad.
12. You Only Live
Twice
1967
Sean Connery
D: Lewis Gilbert
**********
The majority of the movie is like a dull commercial for
tourism in Japan, the Toyota GT, and unsuccessful small arms designs. It gets more fun in the end with Donald
Pleasance’s iconic portrayal as Blofeld and an epic final showdown. While the movie does make the aesthetic
contribution to cinema by putting a villain’s base in a volcano, I’d rather
watch Austin Powers, which is pretty
much like a more consistently fun version of this film.
11. Diamonds Are
Forever
1971
Sean Connery
D: Guy Hamilton
**********
A pretty solid movie, but it did have some annoyingly
silly moments (I could have done without the moon buggy chase).
I liked Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.
10. Goldfinger
1964
Sean Connery
D: Guy Hamilton
**********
It has many of the flaws of earlier Bonds, but it’s
consistently gimmicky and memorable enough to be a classic. Also introduced the iconic DB5.
9. From Russia
with Love
1963
Sean Connery
D: Terence Young
**********
It’s a classic movie that introduced many classic Bond
tropes. However, I found it poorly
paced, and the action was underwhelming.
Then again, after sitting through most of the Roger Moore movies, it
doesn’t seem so bad any more.
8. A View to a Kill
1985
Roger Moore
D: John Glen
**********
A relatively effective action movie with a memorably vile
villain played by Christopher Walken.
7. Skyfall
2012
Daniel Craig
D: Sam Mendes
**********
An excellent entry in the Daniel Craig era. Thanks to Roger Deakins, this movie has the best cinematography in the franchise, with the possible exception of Casino Royale (1967). Javier Bardem plays an extremely charismatic and fun villain. Still, Silva’s similarity to Trevelyan and some moments of annoying semi-meta put this one below…
1997
Pierce Brosnan
D: Roger Spottiswoode
**********
An overall solid and fun movie, but it’s brought down by a villain who’s not much more than an obvious straw version of Ted Turner Bill Gates Rupert Murdoch Robert Maxwell. The BMW 750iL is the best Bond car after the DB5. I might have spoken too soon when I criticized the Bill Gates reference.
5. The Spy Who
Loved Me
1977
Roger Moore
D: Lewis Gilbert
**********
Unlike most of the Roger Moore films, it cultivates a
sense of creativity and fun throughout the whole film, as opposed to saving it
all for the last twenty minutes.
Memorable villains (especially Jaws).
The unfortunately named XXX is built up in a promising way, but she’s reduced
to a damsel in the last scene. Bond’s
brutal, satisfying execution of Stromberg actually makes Moore look briefly like
Bond, but the final showdown in Atlantis is a relative letdown. The Lotus is definitely one of the better Bond
cars.
4. Quantum of
Solace
2008
Daniel Craig
D: Marc Forster
**********
Daniel Craig seems to be the only Bond who doesn’t have
any movies that suck. I seem to be in
the minority of people who like this movie.
Everyone else seems to hate this film, but I found it to be a pretty
good continuation of Casino Royale’s
story, and the chase scene at the beginning was great.3. Dr. No
1962
Sean Connery
D: Terence Young
**********
A good introduction to the series. It establishes the atmosphere and setting
well. The villain is memorable, and you
have to credit it with introducing Sean Connery as the Bond we all know and
love.
2. Casino Royale
2006
Daniel Craig
D: Martin Campbell
**********
A wildly successful attempt to bring seriousness and grit
to the series. Daniel Craig is a
surprisingly good Bond. This movie
improves upon the novella drastically and brings Bond back to his roots as a
brutal, cold killer. Despite this, the
movie successfully humanizes him, which most of the preceding material failed
to do.
1. GoldenEye
1995
Pierce Brosnan
D: Martin Campbell
**********
Honestly, this movie holds up very well. It has great action and it balances depth
with Bond gimmickry well. Trevelyan
(Sean Bean) is my favorite Bond villain because of his past with Bond. He’s a match for him as a spy and he’s an
example of Bond’s actions catching up with him.
The movie correctly casts Bond as cold-blooded killer, but it
acknowledges his imperfections. Natalya
my favorite Bond, she’s a believable co-protagonist and is refreshingly
unsexualized. Pierce Brosnan was a great
choice for the role, but his movies went downhill from there.
Some general observations about the series:
-Bond really isn’t that compelling a character, at least
at first. In the first movies it was
Sean Connery’s charisma helped keep things afloat, but there was little
evidence of his humanity outside the occasional interaction with Moneypenny. There were some early attempts to give him
depth, but none of these succeeded until late in the game.
-While watching the earlier Bonds, I really liked Q, M
and Moneypenny as characters. I wish
they had more screentime.
-A substantial portion of the earlier Bonds have a
problem with dragging plots concluded with 10-20 minutes of creativity. The Roger Moore ones are particularly bad
about this. This isn’t justified by
cerebral character development or anything.
Also, the villains tend to get too little screen time. Then again, I am a Millennial, and the Pierce
Brosnan movies corrupted me into thinking that Bond movies were supposed to be
well-paced and fun.
-This is especially bad when you consider that these
movies rarely run under 2 full hours.
-Sean Connery is the best Bond because he made us love the character despite some of the movies' shortcomings. His movies are generally good except for Thunderball.
-Roger Moore seems to be good actor, but he’s hopelessly
miscast as Bond. It doesn’t help that
the Moore movies are plagued by forced silliness in the form of bad double
entendres, obviously intertextual soundtracks, and cartoon sound effects. Spy Who Loved Me and A View to a Kill are the only Moore Bonds I recommend.
-Timothy Dalton is pretty good, but he got shortchanged in the series with two lackluster films.
-Pierce Brosnan is a close second to Connery. All his movies are fun, but the quality was downhill from GoldenEye.
-Craig isn't the best Bond, but his era is the best. I like all his movies.
-Watching these movies in tandem for this list was a bit
of a chore. That may be a contributing
reason to my not enjoying many of them.
-GoldenEye 64 is better than all the movies.
