My three:
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The Spy Who Loved Me
Casino Royale
Yay, the same as mine!
Rating them alll:
Dr. No — 7/10 - A little slow, but has a great atmosphere, great cinematography, and a script that gets wittier with every viewing.
From Russia with Love — 10/10 - the final boat explosion is a bit iffy, but otherwise great, with excellent location work and a brilliant cast.
Goldfinger — 9/10 - the seminal Bond movie, finally setting the format.
Thunderball — 8/10 - the pace is a little off, but still very good.
You Only Live Twice — 7/10 - OTT, and Connery is clearly not happy, but good harmless fun
On Her Majesty's Secret Service — 10/10 - believable, great fights, wonderful atmosphere, good cast... If Connery was in it would be the best ever.
Diamonds Are Forever — 6/10 - an amusing diversion, but no more than that.
Live and Let Die — 7/10 - reasonable, and Sir Rog makes an immediate likeable impression as Simon Tem- er, I mean as Bond.
The Man With the Golden Gun — 5/10 - a fantastic performance from Christopher Lee doesn't quite save this. It's dull and lifeless.
The Spy Who Loved Me — 10/10 - it's a bit of remake of YOLT, but it gets the balance between the two extremes of Bond-movie style just right. The stuff at the pyramids, for example, is dark and gritty, and the big battle scene is amazing.
Moonraker — 8/10 - Bears no real connection to the literary Bond, and a pretty thin connection to the movie Bond, and is ludicrously OOT - *but* every penny of the budget is up there on screen and it's great cinematic escapism.
For Your Eyes Only — 10/10 - brings Bond down to earth but still as a Bond movie. Again, a great cast, and John Glen's fresh touch at the helm is refreshing. Would have been a great swan-song for Sir Rog's Bond
Octopussy — 7/10 - A bit silly, but harmless fun, with a too-old Bond.
A View to a Kill — 3/10 - Utterly boring, with an ancient Bond, no decent action sequences after the precredit, and it downright avoids fulfilling the stated promise of Bond Vs Grace Jones. Walken is good fun in it, but Glen's direction has already grown tired (there should be a two-consecutive-film limit on directors for the series) and Walken isn't enough to save it from being the worst in the series.
The Living Daylights — 9/10 - Dalton makes a good intro, with John Glen recovering a bit as well. Good action, good score, good cast, though Dalton can't get a handle on the wit.
Licence to Kill — 7/10 - Glen is well-past his sell-by date. WTF is with that that slow mo jogging shot in the PCS, and how the fuck did that delivery of "his name was Sharkey" ever make it through. Dalton has settled into the role, and Robert Davi is great. There's great action, but... it's really just an extended episode of Miami Vice. Bond used to set trends, not slavishly follow them.
GoldenEye — 9/10 - Martin Campbell and Pierce Brosnan reinvigorate the franchise. Brilliant reinvention, with great action both in spectacle (the tank chase) and grit (Bean Vs Brosnan at the end). Only the awful score and some wobbles in the pacing let it down.
Tomorrow Never Dies — 8/10 - Great fun, plenty of action, but it's strangely low key and more linear than most Bonds, with Bond basically going straight to the villain to say "I know your game" and then waiting to get attacked. Pryce and Yeoh are great, but Teri Hatcher really lets the side down. Fabulous score.
The World Is Not Enough — 10/10 - gets the balance between actions, investigation, coolness etc just right. Easily Pierce's best.
Die Another Day — 8/10 - a fun anniversary romp with plenty of action and fanwank, albeit done surprisingly on the cheap (no Moonraker-style globehopping for Pierce this time out). Halle Berry's a bit rubbish.
Casino Royale — 10/10 - Martin Campbell does it again. The perfect mix of literary Bond, big screen action, dark wit, grittiness, and a perfect cast. Best Bond movie ever, case closed.
Quantum of Solace — 8/10 - Marc wossname brings some style, and the cast are fun, but it suffers a little from basically being the conclusion of the previous movie's story rather than a standalone, and the studio/producers' decision to have the original cut sped up and trimmed to hyperkinetic mode. But, TBH, *anything* that followed the genius of CR was bound to be a let-down by comparison.
Never Say Never Again - 7/10 - Connery, like Moore, is too old by this point, but, vitally, the movie takes that into account and makes a point of it. Irvin Kershner (who's previous movie was The Empire Strikes Back) does a good job, Brandauer is a good villain... If it had the gunbarrel opening and a more Bond-ish score it'd get a higher rating than Thunderball.
