This month marks the 60th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, the first film in the James Bond series. Directed by Terence Young, the movie established not only one of cinema's most enduring heroes but a whole new genre. If Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest laid the foundation for the modern action movie, it was Goldfinger which built the house with its focus on big-budget spectacle, a larger-than-life villain with an audaciously implausible plot, and a stylish, implacably cool hero helped by high-tech gadgetry and beautiful women. As much as the Bond films have always moved with the times, often chasing trends, it took decades - the action boom of the eighties - before the rest of the industry began to replicate the high-octane formula which made the classic Bonds so timelessly exciting.
In commemoration of the series' beginnings, I'll be ranking all twenty-five films in the main series. This excludes the unofficial and mostly terrible Never Say Never Again, released by a Thunderball producer who had clung onto certain rights to the story, and the fascinating trainwreck which is the 1967 'comedy' adaptation of Casino Royale. Both would be near the bottom of the list if included. The main series alone offers plenty to be getting on with: spanning six decades and the tenures of six actors, the films are as fascinating in their own right as they are snapshots of the times in which they were made. As a result, one of the many great things about the series is that it offers so many entry points, with any one film having a wildly different tone to another, that there can never be a conclusive list of the best Bonds. This ranking is simply my own, and if you too are a Bond fan, you will appreciate that disagreement is not just expected, but essential. Enjoy.
#25: No Time To Die (2021)
The 60th anniversary of the Bond series regrettably finds it in the midst of an identity crisis, not only with the departure of actor Daniel Craig, who had more creative control over the direction of his tenure than any previous actor, but with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson's misguided attempts at 'modernisation' losing all track of what made the series and its main character so enduring. No Time To Die not only lumbers the once effortlessly cool and composed Bond with the angst and emotional maturity of a lovelorn teenager, but sends him to an extremely contrived death at the end, entirely missing his symbolic appeal as the eternal hero. Worse still, after a fairly lively opening hour, the film commits the cardinal sin of becoming interminably dull, offering up not high adventure, big locations, sex and sin, but a series of dull conversations in small rooms. Add to that a complete mess of a villain and hopeless attempts to wrap up the Craig era's already shambolic continuity, and No Time To Die becomes the only film in the endlessly rewatchable series to make the prospect of repeat viewings thoroughly off-putting.
#24: SPECTRE (2015)
Coming off what was widely seen as one of the best films in the series and with the producers having finally acquired the rights to Bond's arch-nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and his criminal organisation, the eponymously named SPECTRE, what could have been an opportunity to take the series to new heights instead saw a series of terrible decisions sink it to its lowest depths. The continuity of the Craig era, wisely put aside in the previous movie, was hastily resuscitated and rewritten to clumsily force Blofeld and SPECTRE in as 'author[s] of all [Bond's] pain', to borrow one of the movie's most famously clunky lines. Where the glance into Bond's past had worked in the previous movie as part of its examination of his role in the modern world, the decision to force Bond's past into the reckoning yet again resulted in the frankly embarrassing development of his arch-nemesis being turned into his brother, a cliché so egregious that the Austin Powers movies parodied it years ago. That catastrophic decision alone sinks the film's credibility, but even on its own terms, a strong-ish start gradually descends into an incoherent, half-baked final act. That descent may be more gradual than No Time To Die's nosedive, and the fact its better bits are more spread out make it more rewatchable than its successor, but such minor relief does little to console that SPECTRE is both a bad movie and an even worse Bond movie.
#23: Die Another Day (2002)
Die Another Day is a lot more fun to describe than it is to watch. Like No Time To Die, it left the series in a state of crisis over a milestone anniversary. In a way, that could be seen as encouraging: a poor movie on the 40th anniversary led to one of the series most successful reinventions, whereas the triumphant 50th anniversary movie led to its deepest nadir. Perhaps whatever follows No Time To Die, the last film before the 60th anniversary, might also herald a creative rebirth for the series? Even if true, that doesn't make Die Another Day any easier to sit through as a film in its own right. Its first act hints at a tougher, more serious direction in the post-9/11 world, yet it somehow becomes more directionlessly ludicrous than even the worst excesses of the Roger Moore era. Its high camp makes it more entertaining and Bondian by far than the two films preceding it on this list, but the painful dialogue (including a 'yo momma' joke), choppy editing, abundance of woeful CGI and smarmy self-referencing make it just plain stupid more often than stupid fun.
#22: A View To A Kill (1985)
Roger Moore is one of the most beloved actors to play Bond and his tenure produced several of the series' most straightforwardly entertaining movies, yet his swansong was a clear case of an actor and a specific style of Bond movie pushing on well past their sell-by date. Although its cheesiness has a certain appeal, leading to a reappraisal in recent years, for the most part it feels tired and leaden-footed, with the aged Moore particularly exposed by the vitality of the two young, exciting villains in Christopher Walken's Max Zorin and Grace Jones' glorious Mayday. There's fun to be had, particularly with the impressive stuntwork - the old joke goes that Roger Moore's stunt double deserves the credit for playing Bond more than Moore himself does - but the series has rarely seemed more exhausted and behind the times. On the plus side, the theme song is an absolute banger.
#21: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
If Moore's decision to return one last time for A View To A Kill was misguided, Sean Connery being lured back to the series for Diamonds Are Forever proved similarly unwise. Connery's desire for Bond to age alongside him is interesting in theory, but in practice, despite the actor giving a more engaged performance than in his preceding outing, he simply looks overweight and out-of-shape. Connery's huge wage also took a hefty chunk out of the budget, resulting in a film which feels uncharacteristically cheap: the special effects on the atomic explosions late in the film are hilariously low-rent. The Las Vegas setting gives the film a sleazy quality, not especially Bond-like but in a strange way preferable to the flavourlessness of many modern entries. On the plus side, the screenplay is packed with cracking one-liners and its wholesale embrace of camp ensures it is fun more often than it isn't. On the downside, it feels like a film where corners were cut at every turn and wastes some potentially incredible material, not least Jill St John's initially streetwise Tiffany (later reduced to a hopeless bimbo) and a great set-up from the end of the previous movie which goes mostly ignored and entirely wasted.
#20: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
Roger Moore's second outing as Bond fell at the breaking point of the relationship between the series' two original producers, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Golden Gun would mark Saltzman's last credit on the series and it's regrettable that he went out on such a duffer. Like Diamonds Are Forever, Golden Gun feels sleazy and cheap, while the film's depiction of Bond is a uniquely cynical and cruel version of the character, particularly his early, violent treatment of Andrea Anders, the abused beau of the movie's villain, Christopher Lee's Scaramanga. That Lee delivers such a magnetic and charming performance, as well as an amusingly eccentric turn from Hervé Villechaize as diminutive henchman, Nick Nack, only emphasizes how all the supposedly sympathetic characters are unlikeable, grumpy and incompetent. Britt Eckland is wasted as one of the series' most one-dimensional and useless Bond girls, making it all the more unfortunate that Maud Adams' more complex and mysterious Andrea is relegated to second place and treated so poorly. There are some inventive action sequences and vivid, strange locations - and the return of Clifton James' bawdy Sheriff J.W. Pepper is shamefully enjoyable - but feels too gracelessly cobbled together to make the most of its more memorable elements.
#19: The World Is Not Enough (1999)
The World Is Not Enough is a case of inspired intentions, weak execution. The central conceit - what if Bond thought he'd found another Teresa [his deceased wife] only to realise he'd actually found another Blofeld? - is a set-up rich with possibility. Like many of the Brosnan movies, TWINE is quietly progressive under the surface but too bland for its strengths to make the impact they deserve. Sophie Marceau's Elektra King marks only the series' second female main villain, perhaps contentiously counting From Russia With Love's Rosa Klebb as the first. She and her henchman, Robert Carlyle's Renard, are the most complicated characters in the film and their relationship is the core of its plot. Unfortunately, outside an excellent, if long, pre-titles sequence, the action feels rote and forced into the film rather than organically emerging from the story. Asked to do a little more than rely on his usual charm, Pierce Brosnan slips into soap-opera hamminess whenever required to show a shred of emotion. I don't dislike Denise Richards' Christmas Jones as strongly as many, and the film's raunchy final line never fails to make me laugh (very much in the Moonraker spirit), but for a film with so many quietly subversive ideas - not forgetting an unintentionally amusing torture scene involving extensive Brosnan Pain Face and a self-severed earlobe - it's unfortunately just a bit dull to watch.
#18: Quantum Of Solace (2008)
