I Watched Every Bond Movie For the First Time - Here's My Ranking of All 26
From a former British Navy Intelligence officer’s power fantasy scribblings in a Caribbean shack in the early 1950s, one of cinema’s longest-running series was born.
Ian Fleming’s James Bond, codename 007, is one of those rare icons whose fame extends far beyond the page and screen – the suave British spy is a cultural landmark whose identifiers and tropes are instantly recognisable and mimicable.
Despite being a film franchise glutton, Bond has been a blind spot for me for years. So, I gave myself a mission: watch and judge them all, based on stunts, theme, set and costume design, Bond girls, villain(s), theme song, gadgets, and, of course, the actor in the tux. Here’s my ranking of every James Bond film, from least to most favourite, as a first-time watcher.
Roger Moore fans, be warned: you’ll be seeing a lot of him down here. So far, no Bond actor has been bad in the role, but despite his charms, Moore’s definitely the most de-fanged version of the rogueish agent. For Your Eyes Only is similarly not a bad film, but coming after the bombastic high of Moonraker, it falls very short.
If For Your Eyes Only was a bad film, in fact, it might be more memorable. As it stands, the Greek-set story of revenge and missile misuse is extremely thin on action, depth, or spark from Moore, who feels like he’s going through the motions after nearly a decade in the role at this point. The one saving grace? Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot.
The presence of Hammer Horror icon – and future Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars alum — Christopher Lee as the titular villain is this film’s sole boon, and potentially my excitement about him led to this one feeling like such a letdown. The most disappointing part is the wasted potential of The Man With The Golden Gun, which draws an ideological line between Moore’s 007 and Lee’s Francisco Scaramanga: Bond kills for Queen and country; Scaramanga for the highest bidder.
The island hideout is one of the most inventive in the series, with Bond trapped in a fun fair-style maze, hunted by Scaramanga and his signature weapon, and an assassin small enough to hide in a box. If the movie leaned harder into their dynamic, it would’ve been much meatier; instead, it’s mostly flab.
The best thing about Live And Let Die is a killer theme song, courtesy of Paul McCartney’s Wings (though I prefer the Guns ‘N’ Roses cover featured in Grosse Point Blank). This is Moore’s first outing as James Bond, taking over from Sean Connery, and he has a tough time living up to the man who originated the part on the big screen.
With Harlem gangsters, voodoo, and street-level crime, the film is very of its time in terms of African American on-screen representation. Putting that aside, it struggles to match the panache of how previous supervillains have been portrayed (this one is unimaginatively named Mr Big) or the stakes they set: Bond literally walks all over a crocodile trap. Got to say, though, death by inflation will stay with me for a while…
Christopher Walken and Grace Jones match each other’s freak in A View To A Kill, and for that reason alone, I wish I could put it higher on this list. Unfortunately, there are just too many weird, disconnected ideas in this one: something is going on with ex-Nazis drugging race horses, a woman ‘performs’ with live butterflies in an Eiffel Tower restaurant, and a detective called Achille Aubergine is nearly too French to function.
There’s an opening skiing scene (Bond loves to ski) with a Beach Boys needle drop that’s random and clunkily executed, which sort of sums up the entire film. Walken’s Silicon Valley autocrat villain feels horribly prescient; otherwise, this one’s a hot mess. Should you still watch it, though? Absolutely. That Duran Duran song is straight fire, too.
A movie title that is still wild to see written down, or say out loud to anyone asking what you’re planning to watch tonight. Octopussy is one of the late Cold War releases in which you can see the franchise struggle between a nuanced and black-and-white depiction of the Soviet Union, which Western forces were by this point much friendlier with.
Suitably, the main villain is a Soviet general gone rogue, funnelling stolen jewellery into a bid to disarm Kremlin enemies. In trying to have its Cold War cake and eat it, Octopussy feels hollow and the series bereft of new or interesting ideas. Neither bad nor good, but Moore seems to enjoy himself, er, more.
The first appearance of Sean Connery on this list, and while I have a lot of affection for it, You Only Live Twice is another film that’s all over the place. In a feat of peak Bond absurdism, the opening kills off the character… Only to explain exactly what the nonsensical title means. Then we’re off to Japan, and if you don’t have much tolerance for racial insensitivity, you may want to skip suffering through Connery’s ‘Japanese disguise’ altogether.
Generally, this is the series at its lowest for cultural stereotyping and female objectification, especially of Asian women, but some pluses include the first face reveal of Bond’s most persistent adversary, Ernest Blofeld, and his incredible volcano spacecraft launchpad. The surprise piranha bridge dunk (which should be a cocktail name) never gets old, and I think the theme song is really underrated, too.
Perhaps best known for putting Connery in a jet pack, and worst known (by me) for its extensive underwater fight scenes. In Thunderball, Blofeld’s elusive organisation SPECTRE steal nuclear bombs from NATO and demands £100 million of diamonds in exchange for not using them. If you know your Austin Powers, this is the movie from which a lot of Mike Myers’ gags come, including an eyepatched ‘Number Two’ to Blofeld.
What bogs the film down are the aforementioned underwater scenes, which are technically impressive but incredibly bloated and dull to sit through: the water slows the fighting down, and it’s hard to make out who’s doing what through all the oxygen masks and flippers.
This is the only technically ‘unofficial’ Bond film on the list, which are all Eon productions – a company formed specifically in 1961 to produce James Bond films. However, as it features Connery’s return to the role after leaving it in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, it feels worthy of inclusion, especially as it nearly gave the ‘real deal,’ Octopussy, a run for its money.
Never Say Never Again is a remake of the Fleming story that Thunderball was based on, with an added layer of meta-commentary on Connery’s age (meaning Bond’s age, too) and ability to still perform. He puts such aspersions to rest by being really good at video games and pleasing women (take that, haters), like the gloriously unhinged Fatima Blush. A mixed bag, overall, with more value as a franchise curiosity than a really solid entry.
The first Timothy Dalton-led Bond, both in film chronology and on this list. Only starring in two 007 movies, the swarthy Welshman gets lost in the shuffle, being neither an infamous one-trick pony like George Lazenby (up next on the list), nor long-serving, like the rest. But post-Daniel Craig, Dalton’s brooding take on the character was clearly ahead of its time.
The story is one of the more convoluted in the series, but its focus on characterisation really shines, with Bond’s relationship with the KGB cellist he’s protecting feeling like something based on mutual affection rather than raw sexuality. The climactic desert battle is quintessential ‘80s bombast, but the rest lacks some of the sophisticated style of Connery and Moore’s eras.
I mentioned earlier that Bond loves to ski, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the Bond ski movie. So much so, in fact, it apparently inspired fanboy Christopher Nolan’s inclusion of a similar scene in Inception. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has lots of fans among modern directors, and when you watch it, you’ll see why.
Sandwiched between Connery, Moore, and Connery again, the sole Lazenby film is a tonal mishmash of slow and silly flights of fancy – like a harem of brainwashed babes on a snowy mountain – and brilliant high-stakes action. I particularly love Telly Savalas’ quietly confident take on Blofeld, and the jarringly tragic revenge he wreaks on Bond at the end. The repercussions of this ending have a lasting effect on the character far beyond Lazenby’s portrayal.
