The Best James Bond Movies To Watch After Playing ‘007 First Light’

When it comes to James Bond, very few people will dispute that Sean Connery is the best Bond. He’s just the charm, the wit, and the cool demeanor that helped shape Bond into a cultural icon. From Russia With Love is often regarded as being his best film and one of the best spy-focused films in the series. 

Most of the film’s 1 hour and 55-minute runtime doesn’t focus so much on action, but Bond disposing of targets in the shadows and trying to outsmart SPECTRE agents hunting him down. While Bond doesn’t assume enemy disguises as he does in 007 First Light, there’s still tension as the audience wonders if and when he’ll be able to complete his mission successfully. The entire sequence on the train is a masterclass in suspense, with plenty of close shaves and twists that would be at home in a Hitchcockian thriller like North by Northwest (1959). Espionage is the name of the game in From Russia With Love, and it's the best the series has ever done. If you want to recapture that feeling that makes you feel like a world-class secret agent, you can’t beat From Russia With Love.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is an oddity in the Bond canon for several reasons. Not only is it George Lazenby’s only appearance as 007, but its surprisingly tragic nature still stands out from other Bond films then and today.

Compared to all of the actors who played Bond, Lazenby was by far the youngest, filming On Her Majesty’s Secret Service at only 29 years old. This parallels Gibson’s Bond in 007 First Light, who is a younger Bond, both in age and maturity. However, Lazenby played Bond with a sobering maturity that helped elevate the film into one of the franchise’s most underappreciated entries. It still retains a lot of the spy thrills in From Russia With Love, but with several snowy action ski scenes that rival Kingsman: The Golden Circle’s (2017) ski lift scene. Not only that, but its heartbreaking ending is one of the most sobering moments in the franchise, and while 007 First Light may not reach the level of drama that this film does, both show how the world’s greatest secret agent is still a human being. It’s a very non-traditional Bond movie, but sometimes, breaking tradition is good.

By the end of Roger Moore’s tenure as Bond, the franchise was pumping out more comedic and inconsequential titles that got real old real quick. Enter Timothy Dalton and his first Bond film, The Living Daylights, and its surprisingly darker tone.

For a generation of fans that grew up thinking Bond was this slick secret agent that was always ready with a quip, The Living Daylights quickly reminds viewers that Bond can, and will, kill his targets if they get in his way. Even in 007 First Light, Bond will kill his enemies on his assignments, but The Living Daylights really draws attention to it over the film’s 2-hour and 10-minute runtime. It’s a great mixture of every era of Bond, whether it be Connery’s elegance, Brosnan’s action, or the darkness of the Craig era. If you want pure, undistilled James Bond, The Living Daylights is an excellent starting point that will point you in the right direction of which style of Bond you prefer.

007 First Light may be the latest James Bond video game, but if you ask any gamer worth their salt, they’ll tell you that Goldeneye 007 is one of the best movie tie-in games of all time. While the game’s legacy may have outlived the film it was based on, Goldeneye is still a worthy Bond film and one of the few bright spots in Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as the character.

Goldeneye is what you get when you turn a traditionally subdued and understated franchise into an action blockbuster on the same scale as Die Hard: With A Vengeance (1995). It may be tough to get into if you’re accustomed to traditional Bond films, but for fans coming off of 007 First Light and its multiple action set-pieces, it's the perfect jumping-on point. The stunt work and fight scenes are fantastic, and Brosnan really balances the professionalism of being a secret agent with his personal goals of enacting revenge against his former ally. Goldeneye made James Bond cool again, and its 2-hour and 10-minute runtime will keep you hooked for all of it.

There was a time when Timothy Dalton’s Bond was considered to be the darkest and most psychologically complicated of them all. Then Daniel Craig quite literally came in kicking and screaming in Casino Royale and commanded attention.

Casino Royale, like 007 First Light, attempts to modernize the franchise, and it succeeds on every level. While there isn’t as much action as films from the Brosnan era, Casino Royale more than makes up for it with pure grit and grime that makes it feel more in line with The Bourne Supremacy (2004) than a James Bond film. This is the Bond film that features Bond being physically tortured by the villain, played wonderfully by Mads Mikkelson. Despite that darkness, which is definitely at odds with how 007 portrays its Bond, both entries focus on a younger, more inexperienced Bond. Craig’s Bond has only just earned his 00 status, and watching both him and Gibson’s take on a younger, more inexperienced Bond makes Casino Royale a brutal but thrilling watch.