Entertainment Weekly has published a list of their rankings of the 20 Bond films.
I like how they’ve rated On Her Majesty’s Secret Service at number 5. This movie is vastly underrated.
Thunderball is rated too high. This movie is very slow paced and the SCUBA scenes are interminable.
I really like Live and Let Die, but not sure I’d place it at number 3. Probably around 10 or so.
Well, they placed The World Is Not Enough exactly where it belongs. I might watch it again on mute and with all the scenes without Denise Richards removed.
I hate the way they make you plod through their pages instead of just having a list. I didn’t bother.
So I’ll just say that my top two are Dr. No and Goldfinger. For a long time the former was in the top spot. I liked that Bond didn’t rely on gadgets, and that it was shot for such a low budget ($1 million, IIRC). Now it’s a bit of a toss-up, with a possible edge going to the latter. Goldfinger has Bond as suave as ever, plus the trademark Aston Martin and the beautiful alpine shots.
Incidentally, IMO OHMSS is the most true to the book upon which it was based.
Die Another Day and Diamonds Are Forever make it almost halfway up the list, while The Living Daylights (nearly as underrated as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and with some great The Third Man and Lawrence of Arabia references, too) is at 16 (I think…I’m not going back to check)? And how the heck do Live And Let Die and You Only Live Twice get the #3 and #2 spots respectively, while For Your Eyes Only (the best of the Moore films) gets such a low rate?
My off-the cuff ranking:[ol][li]On Her Majesty’s Secret Service[/li][li]From Russia With Love[/li][li]The Living Daylights[/li][li]Goldfinger[/li][li]For Your Eyes Only[/li][li]Thunderball[/li][li]Dr. No[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]blah[/li][li]Diamonds Are Forever[/li][li]The Man With The Golden Gun[/li][li]The World Is Not Enough[/li][li]Die Another Day[/ol][/li](The ones in the middle just aren’t worth ranking.)
Save for a costarring turn by Michelle Yeoh and an awesomely campy performance by the always gorgeous Famke Jannsen, I could lose the Brosnan films without a twitch. They brought nothing to the table. I still haven’t seen the new Bond film yet (people just won’t commit, and I’m about to go without them) but I have high hopes that it’ll hit well above the mean.
Stranger
Oh no, no no no, that won’t do at all.
Both Dalton films are way too low - I’ll admit I may be alone in my secret, guilty love for “Licence to Kill”, but there is no way it deserves to be so neglected - not compared to “Die Another Day”, “Tomorrow Never Dies”, “Moonraker”, “Diamonds are Forever” and “Octopussy”
“Dr No” and “For Your Eyes Only” are also both too low - and what’s the deal with “You Only Live Twice”? Cheez, lower middle of the pack at best!
No problem, though, with “Goldfinger”. It’s one of the most entertaining films of all time as is. There should be a special category, though, for “Goldeneye (with Timothy Dalton as god intended)” which would be #2 easily.
Where would those who have seen “Casino Royale” rank it?
mm
I guess they are limiting themselves to the EON productions, as there is no mention of Never Say Never Again and the spoof verion of Casino Royale
Here’s my list:
11-21: all the rest. If I were to choose the worst of all, it would have to be The Man With the Golden Gun for its five-and-dime story and effects (1979) or Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) for its complete waste of what must have been a very large budget indeed.
As one might tell from the order on my list, I much prefer at least a little reality with my Bond. Connery remains the best embodiment of Bond in my book, although Daniel Craig in the most recent film has unquestionably nailed the character and I can’t wait to seem him do another one. But it’s not just Connery that makes the early films; the majority of the '60s efforts had an amoral wildness about them that wasn’t so common at the time, were fairly well-directed and, for the most part, contemplated the character of Bond and the implications of his chosen career path, rather than simply having him swan around as a tux-wearing action figure. Nevertheless, none of the series, except perhaps parts of Russia, OHMSS and most effectively, Casino Royale, show the sort of Bond I’m most interested in: one who makes mistakes, suffers for them but eventually triumphs through a combination of thuggish guile and cleverness.
While I thought Roger Moore was at least adequate for the role in his early films, time has not been kind to his efforts. He had the manifold problems of being, frankly, far too old in most of them, of having fallen into a time when the producers were clearly making live-action cartoons for as broad an unsophisticated worldwide audience as possible, and of several of them being directed by the absolutely god-awful Jon Glen.
Dalton was not bad in TLD, but I’ve never quite gotten the attraction the fanboys have for this one as being near the top of the list, and Licence to Kill similarly to most of Moore’s efforts, had horrible production design, lighting and direction. Brosnan’s first outing (directed by Martin Campbell of Casino Royale) remains his best effort; the rest, unfortunately, simply seem tired despite their generally good supporting casts and production values.
That leaves us with the odd Bond out, Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I’m glad to see that it has gained something of a cult reputation, as I’ve always thought it had one of the strongest stories and most emotional cores of the series, and Diana Rigg still and likely will forever remain my favorite Bond Girl evah…
The only Bond Ifilms I have not seen are Casino Royale (the new one), and Die Another Day (lost interest by then). My own top 10, purely subjective of course:
The Living Daylights (Dalton is hot hot hot as Bond)
Dr. No (not yet gimmicky, great little period action flick)
Goldfinger (THE classic Bond movie)
The Man With the Golden Gun (Christopher Lee, Bond saved by schoolgirls, and Lulu)
Octopussy (George MacDonald Fraser script)
Never Say Never Again (Sean returns with Rowan Atkinson in an '80’s classic)
Casino Royale (David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen)
Goldeneye (okay, I’ll watch anything with Sean Bean)
Live and Let Die (would have ranked higher if there had been more Geoffrey Holder)
The Spy Who Loved Me (no particulare reason, just not as notably bad as some of the others)
I vote for A view to Kill simply because of Christopher Walken’s awesome, awesome Bond villain. Rest of the movie was trash though.
I gotta go with the Sean Connery classics of the 1960s. I haven’t seen most of these movies in 40 years, but I remember scenes from them like it was yesterday. In no particular order:
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
From Russia With Love
Dr. No
Oh, and let’s throw Casino Royale in there at #6. Excellent flick.
The folks at EW need to re-calibrate their crack pipes.
Here’s my current ranking, by groups, not counting Casino Royale, which I may see tomorrow.
The Top Seven, aka The Essentials:
Dr. No
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
The Bottom Seven, aka The Dross:
You Only Live Twice
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man with the Golden Gun
Moonraker
A View to a Kill
Die Another Day
The Middle Six, aka The Rest:
The Spy Who Loved Me
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
GoldenEye
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World is Not Enough
Bang on.
I was disappointed by Octopussy, if only because the title implied the female lead would have certain anatomical peculiarities.
You only live Twice ,No.! on my list.
I’m just happy to see that someone other than I has On Her Majesty’s Secret Service at the top of their list.
Thought I haven’t seen the new one, right now, George Lazenby is my favorite Bond. I wish he had made more of the films.
Omigod, I don’t even know where to begin pointing out what incredible idiots those EW people must be. I’ve never liked Brosnan as Bond, but “A View to a Kill” is clearly the lowest point of the Bond franchise. And who knows why the EW people have it in for Dalton; his outings deserve much higher ranking than they gave them. And “From Russia with Love” at number 8 because the pacing is sometimes too slow? They must have seen a different cut of that movie than I’ve seen. And lower than “Goldeneye”??? Morons.
I would put **A View to a Kill ** at dead last; the chase scene in a balloon summed up everything wrong with the franchise at that point. And all the Brosnan films were better than all the Dalton and Moore ones, with the possible exception of Live and Let Die.
Casino Royale ranks near the top. Daniel Craig makes Connery look like a pussy! It just lacks a great theme song and title sequence.
Other than having On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Goldfinger in the top 5, I’ve got to scratch my head at most of these rankings. My tastes aren’t everyone’s, but I’d put Moonraker dead last instead of 1/3 of the way above bottom. They write that Halle Berry was the best thing about Die Another Day, and I thought she was the worst. Doctor No was fine for its day, but lacked much of what we’ve come to love about James Bond. I hated Live and Let Die and You Only Live Twice, yet they rank them near the top.
My rankings - with comments where I know most people disagree with me:
Goldfinger - The gold standard.
You Only Live Twice - The music, Little Nellie, rocket eating rocket hidden in a volcano, what’s not to like?
Casino Royale - A belivable Bond.
From Russia With Love - A classic.
Diamonds Are Forever - Campy but entertaining.
Doctor No - Yes.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - Lazenby’s weak but the music’s outstanding and it’s entertaining.
Thunderball - Old school.
The Living Daylights - Tolerable.
All the rest I lump. Either wasn’t impressed, can’t remember one from another or never even bothered to see it because it just looked awful.
The Man with the Golden Gun
Octopussy
Tomorrow Never Dies
Goldeneye
The Spy Who Loved Me
For Your Eyes Only
The World is Not Enough
License to Kill
A View to A Kill
Die Another Day
Live and Let Die
Moonraker
Right. They are assholes. Thus, their list is to be ignored and despised.