It's tough to choose the very best films from among the James Bond franchise, but we did our best to narrow the field. Check out our top picks for the best 007 flicks.
50 Years of James Bond - The Best Bond Movies
There are some traps even Bond can’t escape. In this case, the trap is a script torn between serious new 007 Timothy Dalton and the lingering, winking persona of Roger Moore. Timothy does his damnedest to be formidable, unraveling the threads of a Soviet general’s defection all the way to an American arms dealer trying to start WWIII, but between subpar puns he comes across like an earnest MI6 accountant rather than a suave agent with a license to kill. Better to focus on the action, which ranks among the franchise’s most convincing until Casino Royale.
Supporting Spies: For an opening scene, actors bearing resemblance to Roger Moore and George Lazenby were cast as fellow Double-0s as a clever way of introducing Timothy as the new 007.
Top Secret: Timothy had been considered for Bond as far back as the late ’60s. The opportunity arose again when Albert R. Broccoli declined to give Pierce Brosnan the role because he was still too closely tied to another suave, gun-wielding character: Remington Steele.
Supporting Spies: For an opening scene, actors bearing resemblance to Roger Moore and George Lazenby were cast as fellow Double-0s as a clever way of introducing Timothy as the new 007.
Top Secret: Timothy had been considered for Bond as far back as the late ’60s. The opportunity arose again when Albert R. Broccoli declined to give Pierce Brosnan the role because he was still too closely tied to another suave, gun-wielding character: Remington Steele.
Roger Moore’s final turn is a grand tour of man-made monuments, as 007 spars with a rogue industrialist, from the Eiffel Tower to the Transamerica Pyramid to the Golden Gate Bridge. But those locations beg for big stunts, and we worry for 57-year-old Roger as he gamely fights (and beds) crazy-eyed henchwoman May Day (Grace Jones) and dangles from a blimp. As played by Christopher Walken in full scenery-chewing mode, Max Zorin seems like a rational mass murderer, except for that whole plan to flood Silicon Valley. Maybe Bond could just reason with him over a pot of Earl Grey and then call in the Marines.
License to Thrill: To stage the stunt jump off the Eiffel Tower, a platform extension had to be constructed. It’s painted to blend in but can be easily spotted in the finished scene.
Top Secret: Christopher was the first actor to star in a Bond movie after winning an Academy Award (for The Deer Hunter). The next would be Halle Berry, who played a Bond Girl shortly after winning for Monster’s Ball.
License to Thrill: To stage the stunt jump off the Eiffel Tower, a platform extension had to be constructed. It’s painted to blend in but can be easily spotted in the finished scene.
Top Secret: Christopher was the first actor to star in a Bond movie after winning an Academy Award (for The Deer Hunter). The next would be Halle Berry, who played a Bond Girl shortly after winning for Monster’s Ball.
In the first movie of the series that can be considered a direct sequel, Bond continues to investigate the shadowy criminal organization known as Quantum as a means to avenge the death of his lover Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale. Daniel Craig is still outstanding, and a scene where Bond eavesdrops on Quantum operatives at an outdoor opera production is nifty. But the overall impact is compromised by an overreliance on Bourne-style fight scenes and a muddled climax in which it takes way too much effort for 007 to defeat a bantamweight villain. And hey, nobody wants the bad puns back, but it wouldn’t hurt for Bond to at least crack a smile every now and then. It’s a Bond movie, not Schindler’s List.
License to Thrill: The sight of Bond bedmate Strawberry Fields’ body covered head to toe in crude oil is a knowing homage to the infamous gilded corpse in Goldfinger.
Top Secret: Daniel said that Quantum was much more physically challenging than Casino Royale, requiring training in boxing, speedboating and stunt driving.
License to Thrill: The sight of Bond bedmate Strawberry Fields’ body covered head to toe in crude oil is a knowing homage to the infamous gilded corpse in Goldfinger.
Top Secret: Daniel said that Quantum was much more physically challenging than Casino Royale, requiring training in boxing, speedboating and stunt driving.
Settle down, purists! There’s definitely a case to be made that this Thunderball rehash doesn’t deserve to be ranked at all, that it’s outside the canon of official Bond movies, made possible only due to an old legal settlement that gave control of one story line to a Fleming collaborator. But hey, that is Sean Connery back in the tux after 12 years, still exuding 007 charm while lending a hint of world-weariness befitting a seasoned secret agent reactivated to rescue his country in time of need. Toss in fresh Bond Girl Kim Basinger (23 years younger than Sean) and an excellent update of SPECTRE lieutenant Largo, and you realize that maybe it’s not an international crisis for two Bonds to exist at once. Never again, though.
Nobody Quotes it Better: “Good to see you, Mr. Bond. Things have been awfully dull ’round here. I hope we’re going to see some gratuitous sex and violence in this one.”
Top Secret: With Never and Octopussy released within months of each other, many speculated on which Bond would win at the box office. Both were hits, making nearly $200 million apiece.
See the rest of our top Bond film picks — and get even more killer 007 content — by downloading 50 Years of Bond.
Nobody Quotes it Better: “Good to see you, Mr. Bond. Things have been awfully dull ’round here. I hope we’re going to see some gratuitous sex and violence in this one.”
Top Secret: With Never and Octopussy released within months of each other, many speculated on which Bond would win at the box office. Both were hits, making nearly $200 million apiece.
See the rest of our top Bond film picks — and get even more killer 007 content — by downloading 50 Years of Bond.
What’s the most logical strategy for the Soviet Union to take over Western Europe? Obviously, a rogue general tricking the governments into disarming by exploding a nuke unwittingly smuggled onto a U.S. Air Force base by a beautiful cult leader’s traveling circus. In other words, forget the plot and focus on the pre-title sequence, in which Bond flies a plane through an airplane hangar; the exotic settings, shot on location in India; and some superior hand-to-hand combat.
It’s fun if you don’t take any of it seriously. But let’s make this perfectly clear:
James Bond, elite secret agent of the British Secret Service, should never,
ever be seen dressed as a circus clown.
Nobody Quotes it Better: “On an island populated exclusively by women? We won’t see him till dawn!”
Top Secret: With Roger Moore dithering over playing the role again, James Brolin was nearly hired as the new Bond. But when news broke of the Never Say Never Again project, the producers felt they needed an established Bond to go up against Sean Connery and convinced Roger to sign on.
Find out which other Bond flicks topped our list —and get even more killer 007 content — by downloading 50 Years of Bond
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Best James Bond Movies - Bond 50th Anniversary - Top 007 Films