Rank Every Bond Movie

[Star Treks]

Firstly, apologies because I'm sure this topic has come up before. Bond is popular on this board.

But, I keep track of all the movies I watch, and rank them all. So, I thought it would be interesting for me to go back and look at how I ranked every Bond film, from best to worst. I'd be interested in your own lists, or your thoughts on how insane or reasonable my own list is. I'm including the "non-official" Bonds for reference.

By the way, I should explain my ranking: it is based on a combination of how much I like a movie and other considerations such as its importance, influence, and greatness. This doesn't mean that I will give a movie a higher ranking just 'cause it's popular, but it does mean that - for example - I bump up Dr. No a bit because it's the first, the pioneering film of the series.

Anyway, here's how I rank them:

Goldfinger (1964) - my favorite
Casino Royale (2006) - a great relaunch
From Russia With Love (1963) - a lot to love
You Only Live Twice (1967) - underrated Connery flick
Dr. No (1962) - the original - a bit slow, but still a classic
GoldenEye (1995) - the best 1990s Bond flick
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - good one
For Your Eyes Only (1981) - very strong action sequences IIR
License to Kill (1989) - I enjoyed both Dalton Bond flicks, this was better
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - not as bad as some make it out to be
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - used to love it, have cooled on it
The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) - entertaining and weird
Live and Let Die (1973) - great theme song, but so-so film
Never Say Never Again (1983) - fun, worth considering a "real" bond flick
A View to a Kill (1985) - Walken is good, but the movie is meh
The Living Daylights (1987) - the weaker Dalton Bond flick
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - strained
Thunderball (1965) - most overrated Bond flick
The World Is Not Enough (1999) - forgettable
Moonraker (1979) - good moments but not a great overall flick
Die Another Day (2002) - Bond's "Batman and Robin"
Octopussy (1983) - amazingly dull
Casino Royale (1967) - interesting, occasionally amusing, but not good

 

[trevanian]

Just a general ranking with comments.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE best of the best, Connery + script + direction & score.

LICENCE TO KILL/ LIVING DAYLIGHTS
Daltonpics are very different, one romantic, the other, very much Fleming's dark dangerous world. LTK has lousy photography, but otherwise I like it lots.

THUNDERBALL/GOLDFINGER Ken Adam! Paluzzi, Blackman.

OHMSS - would be higher with different cast & less obnoxious cutting

GOLDENEYE/DR NO/YOLT/ erratic pacing on these, but nice bits. I think Brosnan COULD have been very good as bond with good direction and scripts, but he never got them ... to see Broz in what I think of as excellent bond mode, see TAILOR OF PANAMA (right bastard he is.)

WORLD IS NOT ENUF -- Bond seems reactive rather than proactive ... good notions, as in 'nice try' ... great foolstheeyes miniature shot with Bond in bmw driving through forest.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY/Octopussy - best of Moore, not saying much.

DIAMONDS/NEVER SAY - have some charms, but humor doesn't work well. Brandauer is tremendous villain.

CASINO ROYALE - now that I saw it all the way through w/o having to fastforward my opinion went way up, but I still have major issues with the film. Plot turns all hinge on getting people's cellphone data?

SPY WHO/MOONRAKER - bad remakes of YOLT, only good things are due to Ken Adam and Derek Meddings.

DIE ANOTHER DAY - first act lifts this up from WORST, but after 45 min, it is really bad.

GOLDEN GUN/LIVE & LET DIE Blechh.

TOMORROW NEVER DIES - hard to believe Nick Meyer rewrote this. End credits song is great, as is some of score.
VIEW TO A KILL - boring and tired and awful, except for song.

 

[The Habs Fan]

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Casino Royale (2006)
GoldenEye (1995)
From Russia With Love (1963)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
License to Kill (1989)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Goldfinger (1964)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Thunderball (1965)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Octopussy (1983)
Dr. No (1962)
The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Live and Let Die (1973)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)
Moonraker (1979)
A View to a Kill (1985)
Die Another Day (2002)

 

[IJD GAF]

Let me see here....


Top Two: The Living Daylights, Casino Royale. Not sure I could pick one over the other. Dalton and Craig are my favorite Bond portrayals. These movies show the character stripped away and vulnerable. They feel more like good flicks, less like Bond flicks. Which is ironic considering how late they arrived in the series.

Next Two: From Russia with Love, Goldfinger. Hard to place these as well. One is pretty down to the earth, the other is pretty outlandish. Both are prototypes for everything that came after.

Third tier: The Spy who Loved Me, GoldenEye. Both of these make the single best case for their respective lead actors as Bond. You forget for a while that Moore is way too old for the part and Brosnan is a smarmy son of a bitch, and you're just along for two damned good rides. Very solid entries, both.

Fourth tier: Dr No, You Only Live Twice, License to Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies. The first I find fun to watch, but it's a little too far removed from what the series eventually became. The second is way, way over the top -- yet strangely classic at the same time. LtK is way, way inferior to TLD, with a mediocre villain and an odd semi-emphisis on Leiter, but I like Dalton enough to elevate it above mediocre. TND has another over-the-top plot, with some of the zaniest gadgets in the series, but I like the leading lady enough to bring it up a bit.

Thorougly mediocre: Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only. The thing that kills Thunderball is the editing of the final battle. Way, way too slow. Lazenby and an awkward script bring down OHMSS. There's not too much chemistry between him and the girl, so their marriage and subsequent tragedy just doesn't play right. Plus, I prefer Blofeld in behind-the-scenes type role. FYEO was a very odd Moore movie. Dark and goofy at the same time. Not his worst outing, but just weird to watch.

Sixth Tier: Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, A View to a Kill. The pimps kill LaLD by dating it horribly. It's not bottom of the barrell, however, because Moore's first outing brings enough charm and a fresh face to elevate it slightly. TMwtGG is... bad, but Christopher Lee is entertaining. I feel pretty much the same way about A View to a Kill with Christopher Walken. aVtaK is very slightly underrated, in my opinion, as unlike the very worst, the plot is at least coherent enough to follow and the villain is fun. Moonraker feels sort of like a failed TSwLM to me. It has a pretty alright villain with an outlandish operation, and it sort of works until the last act. Then it's a poor man's Star Wars.

Seventh Tier: Diamonds are Forever, The World is Not Enough. Connery should not have come back for a terrible, terrible film. The Blofeld scenes are stupid, as is the moon buggy crap. What gets me the most here though are the single worst villains/henchmen in the series. Mr. Kidd and Mr. Windt are seventeen shades of lame. TWiNE portrays Brosnan at his smarmiest and assiest, and we have lame villains to boot. Plus Denise Richards is hands down the worst Bond girl ever. Such a shame that she followed one of the best.

Worst: Octopussy, hands down. God this was an incoherent mess. The scenes in India were insultingly stereotyped, the plot made absolutely zero sense, and the climax features Roger Moore as a clown. So, so, so much worse than any other Bond movie out there. Why people rank A View to a Kill below it is beyond me.

I honestly haven't sat through all of Die Another Day, so I hesitate to rank it. From what I've seen, it does not rank very high.

 

[trevanian]

^Octopussy trumps VIEW TO A KILL because it has some decent Q stuff in it. And also because there is something approaching pacing, as opposed to the arthritic feel of VIEW.


The only part of VIEW that feels Bond-like to me is when MacNee goes through the car wash ... combo of music and imagery is very 60s to me. Fitting that Moore is not in the scene that is most Bondlike.

I think LTK's Sanchez is one of the better villains, because i understand him. It isn't just ruling/destroying the world for no reason. But the mushy, stagey cinematography really kills the look. If LTK looked like TLD, it'd be damn near perfect for me (except Dalton's hairsyling and Cary Lowell's wig and the x-ray camera.) Same cinematographer/director, but not same result.

Again, if you see Broz outside of Bond, in PANAMA, I think you'll see how he can make smarmy into vulgar in a very credible and scary way. He really had the goods to play Bond, just never had the direction and material to do it right.

 

[IJD GAF]

I think Brosnan is a hell of an actor, don't get me wrong. The Thomas Crown Affair was a lot of fun and The Matador was a riot. And I certainly think he had the chops to do a good Bond. You only ever really saw any depth to his Bond in GoldenEye though. It's really a shame that he didn't get any more good flicks. He had potential, but he ended up being Roger Moore redux.

And Q in Octopussy was as lame as the rest of the movie. I could buy him in a bigger role, but he was just lame here. Particularly the ballooning business. And I'd hardly say the film had anything near decent pacing. In terms of location, it jumps all over the place. The Fabergie egg business has NOTHING to do with the Nuclear bomb plot as far as I can tell. It's a mess. A View to a Kill is FAR more straightfoward.

 

[Vasquez Rocks]

For Your Eyes Only
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Casino Royale
The Living Daylights
Goldfinger
The Spy Who Loved Me
From Russia With Love
Octopussy
Licence To Kill
Live and Let Die
Dr. No
Thunderball
The Man With The Golden Gun
Moonraker
A View To A Kill
Diamonds Are Forever
You Only Live Twice
Tomorrow Never Dies
Never Say Never Again
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough
Die Another Day

 

[AdmiralGarak]

From Russia With Love
Casino Royale
The Living Daylights
Goldfinger
The Spy Who Loved Me
For Your Eyes Only
GoldenEye
Thunderball
The World is Not Enough
Tomorrow Never Dies
Live and Let Die
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
You Only Live Twice
Octopussy
Moonraker (Ranked this high for the 'It's so bad it's good' factor.)
Dr. No
License to Kill
Diamonds are Forever
Die Another Day
The Man With the Golden Gun
A View to a Kill

 

[The Old Mixer]

I suck at lists where I have to decide definitively which is #13 and which is #14...and frankly, I find them boring to read. But I think IJD GAF has the right idea in dividing them into general categories.

So, keeping in mind that any movies within the respective categories are in chronological order rather than order of preference...


Personal favorites:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service--Most faithful to Fleming's story, and an intriguing departure from the style of the movies around it

The Living Daylights--Most faithful to Fleming's Bond, and a much more fun movie than LTK; a wonderful breath of fresh air after the Moore era. (I don't loathe the Moore era as much as some--by his time the movies had become a different animal from their source material, and I appreciate them for what they are--but as a fan of the books, the Moore era was always disappointing to some degree.)


Strong, but not favorites:

From Russia With Love--Next most faithful to Fleming's story, and like OHMSS almost feels like a "real" (non-Bond) movie

Goldfinger--I never quite got the universal acclaim for this one, but it's definitely got something over the ones in the next category

The Spy Who Loved Me--From an objective viewpoint, arguably the strongest film in the series as an all-around action/adventure flick of its genre, but underrated because Moore's take on the character is so out of favor

Casino Royale (2006)--An intriguing new direction, proving that Dalton was two decades ahead of his time


Solid:

Dr. No--Intriguing early grittiness, and the one that started it all, inventing a new genre of film along the way (though Goldfinger would be the one to make everyone take notice)

Live and Let Die--Not as much of a mess as the ones in the category below

For Your Eyes Only--Was well-regarded in its time as the most serious and Flemingesque of Moore's films, and a turn in the right direction after the excesses of the previous films. There was a deliberate effort to bring the films a bit more down to earth from here on.

Octopussy--Generally solid and the second most down-to-earth Moore film

Tomorrow Never Dies--I don't know why everyone hates it so much, I thought it was the most solid and entertaining of the Brosnan films, a fun ride. I thought that Brosnan was a great whole-package Bond, but his films generally didn't live up to his potential. This almost wants to be in the category above, but it would seem like the odd man out in such company.


Generally enjoyable, but problematic in areas:

Thunderball--Languid pacing through and through, from the underwater scenes to the dreary music to the fact that it takes them what--an hour?--to initiate the villain's plot of stealing the bombs. Most Bond films would have handled that sort of thing in the teaser.

You Only Live Twice--The villain's operation here is nearly as outlandish as in Moonraker, and Connery trying to look Japanese is painful. It can be done--look at Dean Stockwell in that Twilight Zone episode.

Diamonds Are Forever--Connery looks horrible, and the film basically kicks off the Moore era. Things could have gone worse (*shudder*Burt Reynolds*shudder*), but such a disappointing direction after OHMSS.

The Man with the Golden Gun--This one just never seems to go anywhere, the "main plot" about the solar thingymabob being tacked-on and underwhelming. Lee was wasted as a mediocre villain--he should have been Blofeld.

Moonraker--Not nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be. While it winds up taking the Bond films to their greatest level of outlandishness, prior to the space stuff it's a solid Moore-era film.

GoldenEye--Was always derivative, and didn't age well, especially the atrocious score


Don't enjoy these as much:

Licence to Kill--Feels more like Bronson than Bond, and squanders its one intriguing element--Bond going rogue--by having Q go out in the field and equip him (though Desmond was quite entertaining in his expanded role). Hopefully Quantum of Solace will get it right.

The World Is Not Enough--I want to like this one, but it's so underwhelming and forgettable overall


The one that almost wants to be in the category below:

Die Another Day--Not absolutely horrible in spite of Madonna, the invisible car (the most outlandish gadget in the series including Moonraker, IMHO) and the obnoxiously-overhyped Halle Berry; a few intriguing elements, namely Bond's captivity and some cute homages (not including Halle's overhyped bikini shot), keep this one from joining our last official film....


Personal least favorite:

A View to a Kill--I could name various elements that I don't like about this movie, but the bottom line is that it just doesn't feel like a Bond movie. Even Moore says it's his least favorite, though he's at a loss to explain why. And Moore is painful to look at in this one. I used to think he looked pretty long in the tooth in Octopussy, but he was still in pretty good form there. Here, he looks positively geriatric. Almost as bad as Connery in Japanese make-up.


Not real Bond films:

Casino Royale (1967)--Not even a particularly funny or on-the-nose spoof of the genre (see Austin Powers)

Never Say Never Again--If you're going to remake an old film, use a new main actor; if you're going to bring back a classic actor, give him a new film


*Whew*--I got through it! I'll probably change my mind about some of these tomorrow, but there you go.

 

[Star Treks]

I suck at lists where I have to decide definitively which is #13 and which is #14...and frankly, I find them boring to read.

Then you would find my ranked list of every movie I've seen in the last two years unbelievably dull. Yes, everything is actually ranked, from (as of now) #1 ["Andrei Rubilev"] to #282 ["National Lampoon's Adam & Eve"]. Incidentally, my top Bond flick, Goldfinger, comes in at #55, and my least favorite official Bond flick, Octopussy, is #217.

 

[IJD GAF]

I suck at lists where I have to decide definitively which is #13 and which is #14...and frankly, I find them boring to read. But I think IJD GAF has the right idea in dividing them into general categories.

So, keeping in mind that any movies within the respective categories are in chronological order rather than order of preference...

Well made, well explained list. And I probably should have mentioned that I too put them in chronological order within the categories.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I realize looking back that I don't explain my love/hate relationship with Roger Moore accurately. I became a Bond fan and read the books well into his era, so while I did find his films generally entertaining on their own merits, I was definitely disappointed whilst in that era at where the films were at compared to Fleming, and Moore's unwillingness to take the role seriously. Now that his era is well in the past, I appreciate it all the more for what it is, and also appreciated his commentaries on the DVDs. Sir Roger is a thoroughly entertaining light comedic actor and comes off as a heckuva gentleman. And given a choice between him and Burt Reynolds, I don't think it's too far-fetched to give him credit for having saved the franchise so that it could live to make more serious movies another day!

I should also have given a shout-out to Sir George Martin's bitchin' score on Live and Let Die.

Then you would find my ranked list of every movie I've seen in the last two years unbelievably dull.

Nothing personal, and I should have noted that I appreciated your brief explanations in the OP, which drew me into the thread.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Now having come so far in breaking them down into categories, I can probably make the leap into ranking them, with some additional comments to keep things interesting....

1) On Her Majesty's Secret Service--It's lost a bit of the luster that it held for me in the mid-80s, when the series was steeped in such a different approach, but it still has the weight of history and Fleming's story going for it. It and YOLT (see below) represent two directions at a fork in the road, this one being the intriguing direction that wasn't pursued.

2) The Living Daylights--More fun as a casual view, but as an overall film it just doesn't have the gravitas of OHMSS.

3) The Spy Who Loved Me--BLASPHEMY! Amongst its many virtues, I feel like giving a shout-out to what is probably the best car chase in the series. The much-vaunted Aston Martin in Goldfinger got a dark, claustrophobic, back-lotty car chase. This was the first chase showcasing a gadget-laden car to take place out in the open. I also like the ice chase in TLD, but TSWLM has the helicopter shooting at the car (piloted by a flirtatious babe, no less).

And while I'm at it, I'll note that the future Mrs. Ringo Starr was the first Bond girl who was portrayed as Bond's equal in his own field--a claim that has been made in the publicity for pretty much every other successive Bond girl up to this day!

And the skiing parachute jump at the end of the teaser--an impressive, first-time-ever-done-anywhere movie stunt, with the Union Jack and Bond theme dialing things up to 11--would rank highly in my unwritten list of favorite movie moments.

I'll stop now.

Wait--Best title sequence and song!

OK, now I'll stop.

4) From Russia With Love--Kerim Bey! Gypsy girls! Train fight!

Kerim was one of the most memorable Fleming characters, and Pedro Armendariz brings him to life perfectly.

5) Casino Royale--The whole "rough around the edges" approach may not really be Fleming's Bond, whose culturing came as part of his upbringing...but it works great at suggesting an earlier stage of Connery's Bond (even though Connery was several years younger when he started). One of the directors or producers said that the in-joke to Connery's Bond was that he came off as a naturally-rough character who was putting on a vaneer of culture and civility (reflecting the fact that Connery himself had to be schooled in those aspects of Bond's character by director Terrence Young).

6) Goldfinger--Not just close to the books as five of the first six films were, but considered by some of us to be the one film that actually improved upon the novel in several ways.

7) Tomorrow Never Dies--Michelle Yeoh brings one thing that Anya didn't have--bitchin' martial arts skills.

8) Dr. No--Everyone makes such a big deal out of that white bikini, but that was actually watered down from what Bond got a good look at in the novel--Honey coming out of the water wearing a diving mask and knife belt. (No, I didn't leave anything out.)

9) Live and Let Die--Catching the OTT boat chase on TV was the first thing to pull me into the Bond films.

10) Octopussy--The first one I saw in the theater. How did it take them 13 films to get around to doing something as classic as a chase on top of a train?

11) For Your Eyes Only--Suffers a bit from a relative lack of memorable set pieces (the climbing scene being an exception), and from a very non-Bondian score (especially that "Wide World of Sports"-type music that they play over the ski chase).

12) Moonraker--Dammit, I'm sorry, but it's just the most generally-enjoyable film amongst the ones in its category. And Drax gets some of the best villain lines in the series, delivered with great panache. "Look after Mr. Bond--See that some harm comes to him." (Moore says in pretty much every commentary how he always wanted to play the Bond villain, because they get the best lines.)

13) GoldenEye--Even when I first saw it, it had Thunderball written all over it. But Famke was smokin', making her Claudine's chief competition (see below). It was great in its time as Brosnan's first outing. I loved the versatility that he brought to the role, having feared the worst from knowing him primarily as the appropriately-suave but extremely lighthearted Remington Steele. The approach of playing up Bond as PI in a PC world was innovative in its time, but seems a little oversold now. I especially hate Moneypenny in this one. They gave her lines that would have played well if she'd done it with just a smidgen of teasing flirtation, but instead she just comes off as a schizo bitch.

14) The Man with the Golden Gun--I could be amiss here, but it just seems generally more enjoyable than the films further down.

15) Thunderball--It does have a classic, down-to-earth plot, even if it takes them forever to execute it. And possibly the hottest Bond girl in Claudine Auger (especially when she's tied up ).

Hmmm...Claudine vs. Famke. I say...CATFIGHT!

16) You Only Live Twice--Until the DVD extras, I'd never realized what a monumental achievement the volcano base had been. This is the first film to deviate substantially from the book, setting the trend that all movies after OHMSS would follow until they ran out of novels.

I realize that TSWLM borrows liberally from this one...but TSWLM does indeed do it better.

17) Diamonds Are Forever--All over the place. Connery puts in a good performance, despite looking about 15 years older than he did in YOLT only four years before. It has the worst Leiter ever...standing next to Jimmy Dean, who perfectly matched Fleming's description of the character. OTOH, it's got Bambi and Thumper!

18) Licence to Kill--Dalton makes this the best of the worst. I appreciate that they used more from the novel Live and Let Die than the movie that took its name did, but it just isn't enough.

19) The World Is Not Enough--Meh. It took 19 films, but the series finally starts to feel like it's basically done everything before. Unfortunately, the much-needed new direction wouldn't come until after...

20) Die Another Day--For anyone who might not have known, the best homage in this film is that when Bond grabs a book and uses it to support an impromptu cover as an ornithologist--the book is Birds of the West Indies--the book on Fleming's coffee table whose author's name was borrowed for 007.

21) A View to a Kill--Trying a little too hard to sell a geriatric Bond to a younger audience by associating him with the likes of Grace Jones and Duran Duran...bland American Bond girl and setting...yuppie villain...a drawbridge gag stolen straight from one of the Smokey & the Bandit movies, IIRC...ripping off Goldfinger a little too blatantly...these are a few of my least favorite things.

And if I must....

22) Never Say Never Again--I said never again.

23) Casino Royale '67--Demonstrating by contrast that even the worst of the official Bond films in positions 19-21 aren't really very bad films.

Alright...some of the exact ranking might be a little spotty, but there you have it.

 

[TedShatner10]

I found GoldenEye's score to be inappropriate for James Bond in general yet I found it to be fitting for the mid 1990s, while I really liked the title music by Tina Turner.

 

[DRADIS]

Top 5
1 Thunderball
2 OHMSS
3 Casino Royale (2006)
4 Goldeneye
5 Dr. No

Good (in no order)
FRWL
Goldfinger
YOLT
LALD
TMWTGG
TSWLM
FYEO
LTK
TND

Ok/Average
Moonraker
Octopussy
TLD

Bad
DAF
AVTAK
TWINE
DAD

Terrible
NSNA

 

[Captain Ryan]

Top 5
1 Casino Royale
2 moon raker
3 Thunderball
4 Goldeneye
5 Dr. No

 

[Starkers]

Dr. No 7/10 Not a great film but gains a point for being the first at least. Connery is very good here.

From Russia With Love 8/10 Connery’s best and a great spy thriller

Goldfinger 7/10 still good but the pacing is odd and it feels quite ponderous at times.

Thunderball 5/10 Lousy and so, so overrated

You Only Live Twice 8/10 Not perfect but I’ve always loved it, Little Nellie, ninjas, hollowed out volcanoes! Fantastic!

On Her Majesty's Secret Service 10/10 The best Bond film ever, in spite (or perhaps because) of Lazenby. Is he as good as Connery, no, is that final scene better with him, undoubtedly. Seriously who’d imagine Sean Connery’s Bond being upset because a woman died? Great soundtrack and THE best Bond girl of all time.

Diamonds Are Forever 6/10 Sean Connery doesn’t suit the 70s, nuff said.

Live and Let Die 8/10 Moore’s great debut film, fab soundtrack and some cool action scenes.

The Man with the Golden Gun 7/10, not as good as either of the films either side of it, but still fun, and Christopher Lee is wonderful, the face off between him and Moore is great.

The Spy Who Loved Me 8/10 Moore’s best film, sweeping and epic- Moore is callous, the Bond girl is fab (way better than Jinx) and the battle aboard Stromberg’s ship is fantastic. Oh, and there is that pre title sequence.

Moonraker 7/10 Yeah its stupid but so what, it’s fun, and to be honest some people are too damn snobby.

For Your Eyes Only 5/10 Yawn

Octopussy 7/10 Surprisingly enjoyable, helps having a girl old enough to be Moore’s daughter rather than granddaughter!!

A View to a Kill 5/10 So very bad…

The Living Daylights 9/10 Pity poor Timothy Dalton, he was Daniel Craig at the wrong time. Great film which does probably gain a point because it was the first Bond I saw at the flicks. Great set pieces, lovely Bond girl and a FANTASTIC Bond. Shame the villains are so limp. Rooftop chase in Tangier so good Bourne nicked it.

Licence to Kill 8/10 Very good but sadly saddled with a very 80’s American action movie feel.

GoldenEye 10/10 Bond is so very back. Brosnan saves the franchise (despite the fact the snobs will turn against him all too quickly) Great Bond 2 great Bond girls, a great villain…near perfect. If only Dalton had got this!

Tomorrow Never Dies 8/10 Not really that original, and the villains aren’t great, but a damn fun movie in spite of that. Love the scene between Bond and Kaufman, Brosnan is so cold.

The World is Not Enough 6/10 God this is so dull. Robert Carlyle is woeful, and Denise Richards? Kudos for the casting of Sophie Marceau doesn’t redeem it.

Die Another Day 7/10 not as bad as it’s made out to be, to be honest I love it up to the airplane finale- so wanted Miranda Frost to kill Jinx, and while I can take an invisible car a robot suit leaves me somewhat cold- shame as Toby Stephens is a great bad guy.

Casino Royale 8/10 Good film, but not the great film so many claim it to be. Far too long, and the plot relies on so many coincidences (the guy just happening to text whilst caught on camera, any other mobile phone cheat) and Bond’s need to beat Le Chiffre at cards is nowhere near as convincing as it was in the book. Daniel Craig is brilliant (and I say that as a reformed Craig hater) but the rest of the cast is hit and miss. Le Chiffre is a touch bland, and Eva Green is horribly miscast- is she French, is she English, is she mad? Who knows! I’m hoping QoS will be a much leaner film.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Here we go

Best to worst:

Casino Royale (2006)
TSWLM
TWINE
FRWL
OHMSS
Goldeneye
FYEO
Goldfinger
Thunderball
TLD
DAD
Moonraker
NSNA
Octopussy
TND
YOLT
LTK
DAF
Dr No
LALD
TMWTGG
AVTAK

 

[The Old Mixer]

Live and Let Die 8/10 Moore’s great debut film, fab soundtrack and some cool action scenes.

[...]

The Spy Who Loved Me 8/10 Moore’s best film, sweeping and epic- Moore is callous, the Bond girl is fab (way better than Jinx) and the battle aboard Stromberg’s ship is fantastic. Oh, and there is that pre title sequence.

Is it a coincidence that you describe both a soundtrack with a George Martin score and a title song by Paul McCartney, as well as the future Mrs. Ringo Starr, as "fab"...?

Octopussy 7/10 Surprisingly enjoyable, helps having a girl old enough to be Moore’s daughter rather than granddaughter!!

Honestly, when I first saw this film at the age of 13, they looked about the same age to me!

Which reminds me that Moore's daughter appears as the stewardess on Bond's flight in DAD, for anyone who didn't know.

The Living Daylights 9/10 Pity poor Timothy Dalton, he was Daniel Craig at the wrong time.

Dalton's performance in TLD remains my favorite, but around the time that CR was coming out, Lapis Exilis made a strong case for the fact that Dalton lacked the raw machismo to sell himself as Bond, at least what was expected of Bond in the cinema, hence audiences not buying him in the role. Bond has to be someone that men in the audience want to be, and women in the audience want to be with. Craig has that, but Dalton apparently didn't, at least not quite.

 

[Starkers]

Ha ha, the 'fab' line was accidental I'm afraid.

I do see what you mean about Dalton vs. Craig, but I see them as very different 007s. Dalton is more polished, Craig is- no offence intended- more of a thug even than Connery's Bond. Craig's 007 strikes me as the kind of man who'd machine gun a room full of people to get one target, whereas Dalton would calmly fire one shot from three miles away. To be honest I prefer the notion of Bond as a one shot kind of guy, one of the things I disliked about CR was that Craig felt somewhat American in his action scenes. (ie get's the job done but with a lot of collateral damage! )

Basically Dalton's 007 has the experience and so doesn't need to be a pumped up superman blazing away at everything in sight. Luckily Craig's Bond seemed to be maturing as the film went along, which I’m assuming was the point.