James Bond films: Every 007 movie ranked in order of worst to best – The Independent

Delaying the next Bond film till November may be a marketing coup in disguise it can only prolong anticipation, while we kill time wrestling with the theme of a thousand pub debates: whose 007 was best, and which of the 24 films, above which others, have held up?

Even the Sean Connery die-hards would be unlikely to put his six films above every single one of the others; conversely, many wouldnt distinguish too much between Timothy Daltons pair of entries, but weve put them 14 places apart.

Bigger budgets (sorry, Daniel) have sometimes had an inverse effect on amiability, while broader jokes (Roger, were looking at you) can mean drowning in silliness. Those two are at opposite poles of solemnity versus camp.

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To be fair, theres not one phase of Bond without its defining strengths the general rule weve found is that they start up strong when a new actor arrives, then gradually curdle into a parody of themselves. And then its time for a replacement.

Weve gone back through and pitted them head-to-head Connery against Connery, not just against Moore (x7), Lazenby, a brace of Daltons, and four stints apiece of Brosnan and Craig. The results, which will make everyone furious in every possible direction, are here.

24. Die Another Day (2002)

Where to start? The invisible car? That 8-bit surfing on icebergs at the end? Madonna as a fencing instructor? (The song can stay.) The read this, bitch catfight with Roz Pike? So much goes wrong, in such exorbitant ways, you wonder what they were smoking when they made this. But hey, Halle Berry comes out of the sea in Cuba, and is beautiful.

23. Spectre (2015)

Sure, the Day of the Dead opener is a dizzying cracker. But Spectre systematically fritters away all promise; bungles Blofelds entire function in the mythos; gives Craig not a whisper of a fun or humorous moment; boasts lazy casting (ahem, Waltz), car chases with zero jeopardy, and a uniquely unsatisfying climax. 160 minutes. 10 are any good?

Where to start? The invisible car? That 8-bit surfing on icebergs at the end? Madonna as a fencing instructor? (The song can stay.) The read this, bitch catfight with Roz Pike? So much goes wrong, in such exorbitant ways, you wonder what they were smoking when they made this. But hey, Halle Berry comes out of the sea in Cuba, and is beautiful.

Rex Features

Sure, the Day of the Dead opener is a dizzying cracker. But Spectre systematically fritters away all promise; bungles Blofelds entire function in the mythos; gives Craig not a whisper of a fun or humorous moment; boasts lazy casting (ahem, Waltz), car chases with zero jeopardy, and a uniquely unsatisfying climax. 160 minutes. 10 are any good?

Rex Features

Surely Moores worst despite an entertaining Michel Lonsdale, and a decent pre-Point-Break skydiving set piece because the camp and cheese are pushed offensively high. Jaws even gets a girlfriend?! Its hard to see how gondola chases and space-shuttle-theft could ever have nestled together happily, and they dont.

Rex Features

Its all too slick and, if were honest, soulless it says a lot that the best bit is a BMW escaping from a concrete car park by remote control. Michelle Yeohs a sure-fire asset; Jonathan Pryce less so, as a feeble Murdochian tycoon gobbling up media rights. The stuff with his stealth boat looks so crummy. No one champions this much.

Rex Features

Psychedelic hall-of-mirrors showdown? This isnt what anyone wanted and Britt Ekland barely gets out of a bikini as an embarrassingly dim tag-along secretary. Christopher Lee, outclassing Moore, deserved better than to be stuck in these circumstances, in what ends up playing like Bond-goes-to-Fantasy-Island, complete with its very own Herv Villechaise.

Rex Features

Big minuses here include Denise Richardss Dr Christmas Jones a lamentable joke and having no idea what to do with Robbie Coltrane as he waddles through crap CG explosions. But it looks alive when Sophie Marceau comes into play, as a kittenish adversary with claws, whose motivations are genuinely unpredictable.

The nasty edge of this one it was the first ever 15 cert can stick in the craw, and it didnt suit Daltons talents to make him so morose. But John Glen still lays on some nifty practical stuntwork the desert tanker chase, say and while Robert Davis just OK, theres sneering fun to be had with Anthony Zerbe and Benicio Del Toro.

Rex Features

To have and then waste one of the best-played villains of the series: does Skyfall deserve brownie points for Javier Bardem, or black marks? His first three scenes are wicked. And yes, thanks to Roger Deakins, its absolutely the shiniest-looking entry. But the plot holes are absurd, the small roles poorly defined, and chasing Judi Dench up to Scotland just isnt good enough.

Whisper it: the video games better. This one is reliably overrated even while obviously having its moments. The flashier action bits and fantastic Famke Janssen contribution a Lenya-level female baddie, rare! cant entirely make up for the cheesiness, including some positively shocking dialogue, and a not-on-form Sean Bean as a royally forgettable villain. The plots a drag, too.

Rex Features

A big hmmm for this one, the campiest of the Connerys, the one with cringey gay henchmen and the most bimbo-ish female characters of its day, desporting themselves over the long, dull Vegas bit. Its a wonder it works at all, but it does have the song, Charles Gray in his furry boudoir, and an absolute lack of any seriousness going for it.

Rex Features

Here we have a case of two great villains, neat Golden Gate Bridge use, cool song, shame about everything else. Moore was 58 and it shows a majority of his role looks like someone elses stunt work. The whole first half is marking time, but Grace Joness 180 flip is certainly arresting, and Walkens having the time of his life.

Rex Features

Not by any means bad, Moores penultimate effort has its stodgy stretches, and certainly doesnt make the best fist of being the only one named for a female character. Playing her, Maud Adams cant hold a candle to Louis Jordans debonair Kamal Khan, or Steven Berkoffs hilariously hammy General Orlov. The exoticisms a bit naff.

Rex Features

Here things get average. All the underwater stuff presumably hell to shoot is actually... a wee bit tiresome? And though it was the most profitable of the series pre-Skyfall (adjusting for inflation), it feels like the most impersonal of Connerys, with a hard-to-remember plot and middling characters. Sluggish? But with sharks.

Rex Features

People hate this one, and the fluffed climax is a problem. But when its good its breathlessly compelling the Siena rooftop chase is superb and you can make a defence of it as a swift, angry side mission, intelligently picking up where Casino Royale left off, and featuring Craigs most intense performance. Bonds carrying one hell of a grudge here best stay out of his way.

The best element here is a furious Carole Bouquet, as vengeful, crossbow-wielding Melina Havelock, but Topol is good, low-key value too, as a pistachio-munching sidekick. It was a return to slightly humbler post-Cold War realism, with a shrewd handle on the romance, and an evocative climax at that mountaintop monastery.

Rex Features

Ken Adam does damn well on an obviously cautious first-time budget. Other aspects havent been completely worked out yet what, no title song? and it sometimes plays like a dry run for a great Connery Bond film (the next two) rather than the real deal. Still, no ones knocking Ursula Andress, and the thrills are solidly delivered.

Rex Features

Two-thirds of it are great, and this certainly resuscitated the brand with its steely flexing of brawn, enabled by Martin Campbells headlong style. Everything goes swimmingly with Le Chiffre and Vesper Lynd as marvellous additions until they do That Thing that makes the bottom fall right out of the third act.

Rex Features

If we were judging on sets alone, Ken Adams slide-away volcanic lair, thankfully containing a purr-fect Donald Pleasance, would ping this straight to the top. Connerys yellowface and awful hair mar his performance quite a bit, and the storys a trudge at first, but the aerial battles and finale save the day. Plus, piranhas!

Rex Features

Moore at full purr, in a justly popular outing with a pleasingly hissable Teutonic nemesis in Curt Jrgens. So much submarine action could have got clunky, but Lewis Gilbert does an elegant directing job his cinematographer is an actual Renoir! and theres well-balanced parity with Barbara Bach as Bonds KGB counterpart.

Rex Features

Received wisdom doesnt always pick this as Moores best, but the blacksploitation angle makes it easily his most distinctive, and an especially bold choice for his debut. It has genuine flavour, great music, and kicky voodoo intrigue that should have dated much worse than it has. Yaphet Kotto is fantastic.

Rex Features

Its high for a heap of reasons. Timothy Dalton deserves more credit for bringing a tough, nervy edge back to the franchise, and this glides from icy glamour to Moroccan swashbuckling with surprisingly durable skill. Full marks for the spectacular stunt sequence with Necros out the back of the cargo plane.

Rex Features

You dont even need to dock it marks for George Lazenby, whos totally fine, albeit lacking Connerys wicked instincts for innuendo. Christopher Nolans favourite holds up like gangbusters the skiing scenes reach a peak of explosive action even when the plots slightly flimsy, and Diana Riggs Contessa stands tall as the least damsel-ish, most adult (and of course tragic) of all Bonds paramours.

Rex Features

The campy flair of Guy Hamiltons direction made him a handy choice to vary the tone, and this feels archetypal, with both a villain and heroine for the ages. Its teasing, brashly confident and just so much fun: we must doff a steel-rimmed hat to writing at an apex of wit here, gadgets exactly on the right side of daft, and a world-conquering masterplan on Gert Frobes part that was both sinister and outlandish.

Rex Features

Connery at his grittiest, production at its suavest. A superb quartet of co-stars: Robert Shaw; Pedro Armendarz; Daniela Bianchi. Lotte Lenya! The whole train section, helped by its Hitchcockian sense of confinement, is a simmering masterclass. Only two films into the series, Bond peaked, because the formula fell in step ideally with Fleming. Terence Young kept a tight hold on spy thrills that were so classically tailored to Connerys strengths, its as if the script came from Savile Row.

Getty Images

Where to start? The invisible car? That 8-bit surfing on icebergs at the end? Madonna as a fencing instructor? (The song can stay.) The read this, bitch catfight with Roz Pike? So much goes wrong, in such exorbitant ways, you wonder what they were smoking when they made this. But hey, Halle Berry comes out of the sea in Cuba, and is beautiful.

Rex Features

Sure, the Day of the Dead opener is a dizzying cracker. But Spectre systematically fritters away all promise; bungles Blofelds entire function in the mythos; gives Craig not a whisper of a fun or humorous moment; boasts lazy casting (ahem, Waltz), car chases with zero jeopardy, and a uniquely unsatisfying climax. 160 minutes. 10 are any good?

Rex Features

Surely Moores worst despite an entertaining Michel Lonsdale, and a decent pre-Point-Break skydiving set piece because the camp and cheese are pushed offensively high. Jaws even gets a girlfriend?! Its hard to see how gondola chases and space-shuttle-theft could ever have nestled together happily, and they dont.

Rex Features

Its all too slick and, if were honest, soulless it says a lot that the best bit is a BMW escaping from a concrete car park by remote control. Michelle Yeohs a sure-fire asset; Jonathan Pryce less so, as a feeble Murdochian tycoon gobbling up media rights. The stuff with his stealth boat looks so crummy. No one champions this much.

Rex Features

Psychedelic hall-of-mirrors showdown? This isnt what anyone wanted and Britt Ekland barely gets out of a bikini as an embarrassingly dim tag-along secretary. Christopher Lee, outclassing Moore, deserved better than to be stuck in these circumstances, in what ends up playing like Bond-goes-to-Fantasy-Island, complete with its very own Herv Villechaise.

Rex Features

Big minuses here include Denise Richardss Dr Christmas Jones a lamentable joke and having no idea what to do with Robbie Coltrane as he waddles through crap CG explosions. But it looks alive when Sophie Marceau comes into play, as a kittenish adversary with claws, whose motivations are genuinely unpredictable.

The nasty edge of this one it was the first ever 15 cert can stick in the craw, and it didnt suit Daltons talents to make him so morose. But John Glen still lays on some nifty practical stuntwork the desert tanker chase, say and while Robert Davis just OK, theres sneering fun to be had with Anthony Zerbe and Benicio Del Toro.

Rex Features

To have and then waste one of the best-played villains of the series: does Skyfall deserve brownie points for Javier Bardem, or black marks? His first three scenes are wicked. And yes, thanks to Roger Deakins, its absolutely the shiniest-looking entry. But the plot holes are absurd, the small roles poorly defined, and chasing Judi Dench up to Scotland just isnt good enough.

Whisper it: the video games better. This one is reliably overrated even while obviously having its moments. The flashier action bits and fantastic Famke Janssen contribution a Lenya-level female baddie, rare! cant entirely make up for the cheesiness, including some positively shocking dialogue, and a not-on-form Sean Bean as a royally forgettable villain. The plots a drag, too.

Rex Features

A big hmmm for this one, the campiest of the Connerys, the one with cringey gay henchmen and the most bimbo-ish female characters of its day, desporting themselves over the long, dull Vegas bit. Its a wonder it works at all, but it does have the song, Charles Gray in his furry boudoir, and an absolute lack of any seriousness going for it.

Rex Features

Here we have a case of two great villains, neat Golden Gate Bridge use, cool song, shame about everything else. Moore was 58 and it shows a majority of his role looks like someone elses stunt work. The whole first half is marking time, but Grace Joness 180 flip is certainly arresting, and Walkens having the time of his life.

Rex Features

Not by any means bad, Moores penultimate effort has its stodgy stretches, and certainly doesnt make the best fist of being the only one named for a female character. Playing her, Maud Adams cant hold a candle to Louis Jordans debonair Kamal Khan, or Steven Berkoffs hilariously hammy General Orlov. The exoticisms a bit naff.

Rex Features

Here things get average. All the underwater stuff presumably hell to shoot is actually... a wee bit tiresome? And though it was the most profitable of the series pre-Skyfall (adjusting for inflation), it feels like the most impersonal of Connerys, with a hard-to-remember plot and middling characters. Sluggish? But with sharks.

Rex Features

People hate this one, and the fluffed climax is a problem. But when its good its breathlessly compelling the Siena rooftop chase is superb and you can make a defence of it as a swift, angry side mission, intelligently picking up where Casino Royale left off, and featuring Craigs most intense performance. Bonds carrying one hell of a grudge here best stay out of his way.

The best element here is a furious Carole Bouquet, as vengeful, crossbow-wielding Melina Havelock, but Topol is good, low-key value too, as a pistachio-munching sidekick. It was a return to slightly humbler post-Cold War realism, with a shrewd handle on the romance, and an evocative climax at that mountaintop monastery.

Rex Features

Ken Adam does damn well on an obviously cautious first-time budget. Other aspects havent been completely worked out yet what, no title song? and it sometimes plays like a dry run for a great Connery Bond film (the next two) rather than the real deal. Still, no ones knocking Ursula Andress, and the thrills are solidly delivered.

Rex Features

Two-thirds of it are great, and this certainly resuscitated the brand with its steely flexing of brawn, enabled by Martin Campbells headlong style. Everything goes swimmingly with Le Chiffre and Vesper Lynd as marvellous additions until they do That Thing that makes the bottom fall right out of the third act.

Rex Features

If we were judging on sets alone, Ken Adams slide-away volcanic lair, thankfully containing a purr-fect Donald Pleasance, would ping this straight to the top. Connerys yellowface and awful hair mar his performance quite a bit, and the storys a trudge at first, but the aerial battles and finale save the day. Plus, piranhas!

Rex Features

Moore at full purr, in a justly popular outing with a pleasingly hissable Teutonic nemesis in Curt Jrgens. So much submarine action could have got clunky, but Lewis Gilbert does an elegant directing job his cinematographer is an actual Renoir! and theres well-balanced parity with Barbara Bach as Bonds KGB counterpart.

Rex Features

Received wisdom doesnt always pick this as Moores best, but the blacksploitation angle makes it easily his most distinctive, and an especially bold choice for his debut. It has genuine flavour, great music, and kicky voodoo intrigue that should have dated much worse than it has. Yaphet Kotto is fantastic.

Rex Features

Its high for a heap of reasons. Timothy Dalton deserves more credit for bringing a tough, nervy edge back to the franchise, and this glides from icy glamour to Moroccan swashbuckling with surprisingly durable skill. Full marks for the spectacular stunt sequence with Necros out the back of the cargo plane.

Rex Features

You dont even need to dock it marks for George Lazenby, whos totally fine, albeit lacking Connerys wicked instincts for innuendo. Christopher Nolans favourite holds up like gangbusters the skiing scenes reach a peak of explosive action even when the plots slightly flimsy, and Diana Riggs Contessa stands tall as the least damsel-ish, most adult (and of course tragic) of all Bonds paramours.

Rex Features

The campy flair of Guy Hamiltons direction made him a handy choice to vary the tone, and this feels archetypal, with both a villain and heroine for the ages. Its teasing, brashly confident and just so much fun: we must doff a steel-rimmed hat to writing at an apex of wit here, gadgets exactly on the right side of daft, and a world-conquering masterplan on Gert Frobes part that was both sinister and outlandish.

Rex Features

Connery at his grittiest, production at its suavest. A superb quartet of co-stars: Robert Shaw; Pedro Armendarz; Daniela Bianchi. Lotte Lenya! The whole train section, helped by its Hitchcockian sense of confinement, is a simmering masterclass. Only two films into the series, Bond peaked, because the formula fell in step ideally with Fleming. Terence Young kept a tight hold on spy thrills that were so classically tailored to Connerys strengths, its as if the script came from Savile Row.

Getty Images

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James Bond films: Every 007 movie ranked in order of worst to best - The Independent

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