With No Time to Die finally releasing at the end of September in Britain and on October 8th in the United States and potentially never ever in Australia thanks to perpetual lockdowns, and to start this thread on a positive note after all of the negative buzz potentially surrounding the new Bond 25 film, I'll initiative the conversation by asking what you all feel are your favorite Bond films over the ages.
There have been twenty five films in the official Bond series, or twenty six if you include the 'non-Eon' film made by Jason Schwartzmann which is 1983's Never Say Never Again or twenty seven films if you include the chaotic production of 1967's Casino Royale which had FIVE different Directors and twelve different screenwriters (which is a bit exceptional back in those days) which I never bothered seeing.
But I have seen the other Bond films, all of them and to start off the conversation, what are my top Five Bond films?
1. Goldfinger (1964): This is a tricky one. Sean Connery is James Bond, at least on film. But there's three great Connery Bond films, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. But Goldfinger kind of put all of the elements of the Bond movies together while still keeping that almost lighthearted action spy thriller tone. It had Sean Connery in his third Bond film doing a great job, a great villain in Auric Goldfinger with a complete villainous mania and iconic style and look. It had lots of cool gadgets including the iconic Aston-Martin DB-5, the shoe homing beacon and some great villain gadgets as well like the Laser Cannon used in the memorable interrogation scene and Oddjob's razor sharp hat. Great story and plot involving RED CHINA and irradiating Fort Knox and some iconic characters like Pussy Galore and Oddjob as well.
Another important thing about this film is that it's not nearly as 'gritty' or grounded or whatnot like literally every other film on this list. It just had that perfect mix of espionage, action, romance, gadgets and supervillainy and more. And a great mook battle at the end as well, which is what I really loved about the early Bond films. It was really a template for later films ranging from Thunderball (and thus Never Say Never Again) to Moonraker and even stuff like Tomorrow Never Dies with the crazy villainous superwealthy mastermind.
2. From Russia With Love (1963): For everyone that praises the Brosnan or Craig or even Dalton films as being more hard boiled spy films and the like, Sean Connery did it first with the second movie in the franchise. From Russia With Love is that movie. It takes place during the height of the Cold War in Istanbul, Turkey and later through the breadth of the Balkans with James Bond being tasked to steal a Lektor decoding machine from a Soviet Embassy but surprise, it's all part of a master plan by SPECTRE to help weaken and foment more discord between both of the Superpowers so they can take over. The first half of the movie is a great 1960's era spy thriller full of action and intrigue and as it builds up one of the most ironic villains in Bond history and like Goldfinger above, a template for later Bond "enforcer" style villains who tended to be tall blonde hitman types. Red Grant, a tall blonde and professional assassin who is Bond's equal or superior in almost every capacity. He plays Bond like a fiddle through most of the film and the final confrontation they have is one of the better fight scenes in the series. He even has a cool gadget in the form of a garrote watch.
There's also a great Bond Girl here in Tatiana, a Russian defector unknowingly being manipulated by SPECTRE and fancy technology like pagers, hidden tape recorders, a collapsible sniper rifle and Rosa Klebb's (whose memorable in her own right) poisoned boot knife. The best gadget of course though... is Bond's Attache Case.
3. Casino Royale (2006): Sometimes I wonder if this is the best Bond film. Daniel Craig saved the franchise with this first outing and updated hte Bond formula to the modern day in a way that the earlier Brosnan film like the really ungood Die Another Day completely missed on. Despite not being supposedly suave (or dark haired) Daniel Craig's blonde, blue eyed Bond with the look of a prizefighting boxer proved perfectly suave and classy in his Casino scenes and was also easily credible in all of the action scenes as well (I remember him running through drywall in the initial action scene). The backdrop of the main plot taking place in a Casino during a poker tournament was a great change of pace after the opening action filled investigation scenes. Le Chiffre was actually a great villain as well. he was different then most Bond villains and yet still had great presence and the torture he puts Bond through in the end was... wincing for many I'm assuming.
Plus the rest of the cast was great as well. Felix Lighter from the CIA, and Judi Dench's M reprised her role. Rene Mathis as Bond's ally and portrayed brilliantly by Giancarlo Giannini. But this film might've had the best Bond girl ever in Eva Green's Vesper Lynd. She was perfectly cast for the role and perfectly written. Vesper was a fully fleshed out Bond girl who unlike some of my favorite Bond Girls, didn't have to engage in many physical or action scenes to 'validate' her worth on screen as a character. But she was still a powerful presence in the film and the two leads sold their budding and building relationship up very well in the span of a single movie. It was a great romance and probably the best one in the entire film series.
Above all Casino Royale seemed to save the moribund franchise in an era of tv series like 24 or movie rivals like Jason Bourne without sacrificing too much of what makes a Bond film a Bond film.
4. License to Kill (1989): Timothy Dalton's second and final Bond film I feel was greatly underestimated in quality (and Dalton as a Bond underrated overall). It is definitely a more focused story. There's no world domination plans here but just a revenge story against a very well portrayed Drug Cartel leader portrayed amazingly by Robert Davi. After the Drug Lord brutally attacks his friend and ally Felix Lighter, Bond goes rogue after the Cartel intent on revenge. It's a gritty and intense story but doesn't lose itself in the grimness as it still maintains an engaging atmosphere in the film. It's heavy on brief bouts of action and lots of manipulation and intrigue as Dalton's Bond manages to play the odds right and work his way into the Cartel to destroy it.
The film also has some great and memorable scenes, not the least the rather shocking scene of feeding someone to a shark, or another person being executed by Robert Davi's Druglord Frank Sanchez by being exploded inside of a depressurization chamber. There's great action scenes including Bond engaging in a midair airplane hijacking, an attack on a police convoy on a bridge (shades of True Lies) and even a scene with a ninjas (or their Hong Kong equivalent). Cool gadgets too including plastic explosive toothpasge, a laser beam camera and another camera that can be reassembled into a sniper rifle. It also has one of the best Bond girls in the series with Pam Bouvier whose both capable and beautiful. She steals every scene and even James Bond has to do a double take the first time he sees her (again). And Robert Davi's Frank Sanchez, despite his master plan being distributing a few hundred million in cocaine and blackmailing the US with Stinger missiles being somewhat underwhelming, is still one of the best villains of the series.
5. Goldeneye (1995): Just like Casino Royale later, Goldeneye was the first Bond film in six years and was seen as a film that helped rescue the franchise and making it relevant in a post-Cold War era. It can be seen in how much of the films iconic settings and characters are based around the Russian Federation so soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union or from the new female M calling Brosnan a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." Pierce Brosnan might've been the best cast Bond ever with the exception of the original, being suave and sophisticated and still having a physical presence to kickass. Plus this film still had gadgets and great Bond Girls (and Bond Girl villains) and a suitably epic plot involving an old Soviet-era satellite capable of launching EMP blasts that can knock countries (namely Britain) back into the Stone Age.
Natalya Simonova was a great Bond girl (and one of the first female hackers featured in movies) but also shining were the villains. Xenia Onatopp is never going to be forgotten as Famke Janssen crushed the role. And Sean Bean's Alec Trevelyan as a rival former Double O Agent is easily one of the best villains in the Bond series, almost like an evil-Bond analogue but far more fleshed out then the 'Red Grant' archetype that populated movies so much as to be a cliche. The real tragedy is that none of Brosnan's subsequent three films really came close to Goldeneye in quality.
Y'all got any favorites when it comes to Bond films? Or Bond portrayals? Or Bond Girls, Gadgets, Cars, Villains etc?
There have been twenty five films in the official Bond series, or twenty six if you include the 'non-Eon' film made by Jason Schwartzmann which is 1983's Never Say Never Again or twenty seven films if you include the chaotic production of 1967's Casino Royale which had FIVE different Directors and twelve different screenwriters (which is a bit exceptional back in those days) which I never bothered seeing.
But I have seen the other Bond films, all of them and to start off the conversation, what are my top Five Bond films?
1. Goldfinger (1964): This is a tricky one. Sean Connery is James Bond, at least on film. But there's three great Connery Bond films, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. But Goldfinger kind of put all of the elements of the Bond movies together while still keeping that almost lighthearted action spy thriller tone. It had Sean Connery in his third Bond film doing a great job, a great villain in Auric Goldfinger with a complete villainous mania and iconic style and look. It had lots of cool gadgets including the iconic Aston-Martin DB-5, the shoe homing beacon and some great villain gadgets as well like the Laser Cannon used in the memorable interrogation scene and Oddjob's razor sharp hat. Great story and plot involving RED CHINA and irradiating Fort Knox and some iconic characters like Pussy Galore and Oddjob as well.
Another important thing about this film is that it's not nearly as 'gritty' or grounded or whatnot like literally every other film on this list. It just had that perfect mix of espionage, action, romance, gadgets and supervillainy and more. And a great mook battle at the end as well, which is what I really loved about the early Bond films. It was really a template for later films ranging from Thunderball (and thus Never Say Never Again) to Moonraker and even stuff like Tomorrow Never Dies with the crazy villainous superwealthy mastermind.
2. From Russia With Love (1963): For everyone that praises the Brosnan or Craig or even Dalton films as being more hard boiled spy films and the like, Sean Connery did it first with the second movie in the franchise. From Russia With Love is that movie. It takes place during the height of the Cold War in Istanbul, Turkey and later through the breadth of the Balkans with James Bond being tasked to steal a Lektor decoding machine from a Soviet Embassy but surprise, it's all part of a master plan by SPECTRE to help weaken and foment more discord between both of the Superpowers so they can take over. The first half of the movie is a great 1960's era spy thriller full of action and intrigue and as it builds up one of the most ironic villains in Bond history and like Goldfinger above, a template for later Bond "enforcer" style villains who tended to be tall blonde hitman types. Red Grant, a tall blonde and professional assassin who is Bond's equal or superior in almost every capacity. He plays Bond like a fiddle through most of the film and the final confrontation they have is one of the better fight scenes in the series. He even has a cool gadget in the form of a garrote watch.
There's also a great Bond Girl here in Tatiana, a Russian defector unknowingly being manipulated by SPECTRE and fancy technology like pagers, hidden tape recorders, a collapsible sniper rifle and Rosa Klebb's (whose memorable in her own right) poisoned boot knife. The best gadget of course though... is Bond's Attache Case.
3. Casino Royale (2006): Sometimes I wonder if this is the best Bond film. Daniel Craig saved the franchise with this first outing and updated hte Bond formula to the modern day in a way that the earlier Brosnan film like the really ungood Die Another Day completely missed on. Despite not being supposedly suave (or dark haired) Daniel Craig's blonde, blue eyed Bond with the look of a prizefighting boxer proved perfectly suave and classy in his Casino scenes and was also easily credible in all of the action scenes as well (I remember him running through drywall in the initial action scene). The backdrop of the main plot taking place in a Casino during a poker tournament was a great change of pace after the opening action filled investigation scenes. Le Chiffre was actually a great villain as well. he was different then most Bond villains and yet still had great presence and the torture he puts Bond through in the end was... wincing for many I'm assuming.
Plus the rest of the cast was great as well. Felix Lighter from the CIA, and Judi Dench's M reprised her role. Rene Mathis as Bond's ally and portrayed brilliantly by Giancarlo Giannini. But this film might've had the best Bond girl ever in Eva Green's Vesper Lynd. She was perfectly cast for the role and perfectly written. Vesper was a fully fleshed out Bond girl who unlike some of my favorite Bond Girls, didn't have to engage in many physical or action scenes to 'validate' her worth on screen as a character. But she was still a powerful presence in the film and the two leads sold their budding and building relationship up very well in the span of a single movie. It was a great romance and probably the best one in the entire film series.
Above all Casino Royale seemed to save the moribund franchise in an era of tv series like 24 or movie rivals like Jason Bourne without sacrificing too much of what makes a Bond film a Bond film.
4. License to Kill (1989): Timothy Dalton's second and final Bond film I feel was greatly underestimated in quality (and Dalton as a Bond underrated overall). It is definitely a more focused story. There's no world domination plans here but just a revenge story against a very well portrayed Drug Cartel leader portrayed amazingly by Robert Davi. After the Drug Lord brutally attacks his friend and ally Felix Lighter, Bond goes rogue after the Cartel intent on revenge. It's a gritty and intense story but doesn't lose itself in the grimness as it still maintains an engaging atmosphere in the film. It's heavy on brief bouts of action and lots of manipulation and intrigue as Dalton's Bond manages to play the odds right and work his way into the Cartel to destroy it.
The film also has some great and memorable scenes, not the least the rather shocking scene of feeding someone to a shark, or another person being executed by Robert Davi's Druglord Frank Sanchez by being exploded inside of a depressurization chamber. There's great action scenes including Bond engaging in a midair airplane hijacking, an attack on a police convoy on a bridge (shades of True Lies) and even a scene with a ninjas (or their Hong Kong equivalent). Cool gadgets too including plastic explosive toothpasge, a laser beam camera and another camera that can be reassembled into a sniper rifle. It also has one of the best Bond girls in the series with Pam Bouvier whose both capable and beautiful. She steals every scene and even James Bond has to do a double take the first time he sees her (again). And Robert Davi's Frank Sanchez, despite his master plan being distributing a few hundred million in cocaine and blackmailing the US with Stinger missiles being somewhat underwhelming, is still one of the best villains of the series.
5. Goldeneye (1995): Just like Casino Royale later, Goldeneye was the first Bond film in six years and was seen as a film that helped rescue the franchise and making it relevant in a post-Cold War era. It can be seen in how much of the films iconic settings and characters are based around the Russian Federation so soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union or from the new female M calling Brosnan a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." Pierce Brosnan might've been the best cast Bond ever with the exception of the original, being suave and sophisticated and still having a physical presence to kickass. Plus this film still had gadgets and great Bond Girls (and Bond Girl villains) and a suitably epic plot involving an old Soviet-era satellite capable of launching EMP blasts that can knock countries (namely Britain) back into the Stone Age.
Natalya Simonova was a great Bond girl (and one of the first female hackers featured in movies) but also shining were the villains. Xenia Onatopp is never going to be forgotten as Famke Janssen crushed the role. And Sean Bean's Alec Trevelyan as a rival former Double O Agent is easily one of the best villains in the Bond series, almost like an evil-Bond analogue but far more fleshed out then the 'Red Grant' archetype that populated movies so much as to be a cliche. The real tragedy is that none of Brosnan's subsequent three films really came close to Goldeneye in quality.
Y'all got any favorites when it comes to Bond films? Or Bond portrayals? Or Bond Girls, Gadgets, Cars, Villains etc?
