The James Bond film franchise has been around since 1962. In that time, there have been 24 James Bond movies with the next installment,No Time to Die, scheduled for release later this year. A franchise that’s almost 60 years old and has 24 films can be pretty daunting, especially since the films are pretty much all standalone adventures. Tackling them chronologically won’t really give you any advantage, and one of the harder truths of this series is that a lot of the Bond films aren’t very good whether due to being a product of their age or sloppy screenwriting or both. There’s usually at least one or two redeemable aspects to even the worst Bond movies, but it’s not typically worth sitting throughMoonrakerorOctopussyto find out what those are.
With limited time and/or a lack of desire to put yourself through the more grueling entries in the series, which are the essential Bond movies? Which ones give you the best sense of each actor’s tenure as Bond and the franchise as a whole? After watching every movie in the franchise, I’ve listed the seven essential James Bond movies. I’d recommend watching them in chronological order to see how the series evolved over the decades, but it’s not mandatory since Bond movies typically standalone, and none of these film’s plots are connected. While some may argue against particular omissions, I’ve tried to keep this limited so it’s useful to newcomers who want to understand Bond but only want the essentials.
Goldfinger (1964)
WhileDr. No(1962) is okay andFrom Russia with Love(1963) is pretty good, the best theSean Conneryera has to offer isGoldfinger. The plot involves Bond trying to stop the nefarious Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) from enacting his silly plan to tank the price of gold, which will make him even richer. Bond villains typically have convoluted plans, but Goldfinger’s are so silly that it comes back around to being kind of brilliant, and that freewheeling nature permeates the rest of the film so that you can have a character named “Pussy Galore” or a henchman named “Oddjob” who throws a lethal bowler hat. So much of what we think about James Bond today comes fromGoldfinger, and even when it’s very icky (Bond basically forces himself on Pussy Galore, and then she becomes a good guy thanks to having sex with Bond), it’s emblematic of the franchise’s original identity.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
People like to knockGeorge Lazenbybecause he only starred as James Bond once, so the assumption goes that he must not have been very good at it. Here’s the truth: Lazenby is actually a very good James Bond and he’s in one of the best James Bond movies. Where Connery provides a kind of charming aloofness, Lazenby, a used car salesman-turned-male-model who basically bullshitted his way into being Bond, seems to be having a blast as the new 007. His new adventure takes him into the Swiss Alps and teaming up with a mobster to take on Blofeld (Telly Savalas).On Her Majesty’s Secret Servicefeels like a film that has the freedom to take some chances and try out some new things, like having Bond fall in love and suffer loss while not straying too far from the secret agent fantasy the character represents.
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
TheRoger MooreBond films are largely bad. They’re either kind of racist (Live and Let DieandOctopussy) and/or they’re a hodgepodge of every random idea the producers had dumped into a single plotline regardless of whether or not it makes for a good narrative.The Man with the Golden Gunmanages to achieve escape velocity by being so incredibly weird that it becomes captivating. The plot has Bond fighting the world’s most expensive assassin, Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), a former trickshot artist who has a third nipple and lives on an island with a little person manservant (Hervé Villechaize). It’s very strange, kind of represents the lack of focus of the Moore Bond movies, but still manages to be pretty entertaining.
License to Kill (1989)
License to Killand to a lesser extentThe Living Daylightsare so fascinating because they’re so different from everything else in the Bond franchise.Timothy Dalton’s movies are very much a product of late-80s action cinema, and particularlyLicense to Killcomes right up to the line of being rated-R as Bond goes after a drug kingpin (Robert Davi) who maimed Bond’s friend Felix Leiter and murdered Felix’s new bride. What makesLicense to Killa really captivating Bond film is that for half the movie, it doesn’t even really feel like a Bond movie, which then raises the question, “What makes a Bond movie?” If you strip everything away and just have him as a rogue secret agent on a mission of revenge, is that still James Bond, or just a generic action movie that happens to star a character named “James Bond”? Sometimes the best way to get a fresh perspective on a long-running icon is to step outside his trappings.
GoldenEye (1995)
The first (and best)Pierce BrosnanBond movie is a half-step towards introspection for the character. After taking a six-year hiatus (the longest the character has ever been off screen in his history) and returning after the end of the Cold War, Bond finds himself a bit adrift in the world. The film acknowledges that he’s a relic who needs to reinvent himself to enter the looming 21st century, and the movie kind of gets there. It’s still a little gadget-happy and a little influenced by Tom Clancy books and their concern for geopolitics, but overall it feels like a nice way of bridging the classic Bond attitude while acknowledging that the world has changed and that Bond has to (begrudgingly) change with it. The following Bond movies would fall back into gadgets and womanizing and nonsensical plots, butGoldenEyeis a promising step forward for the series.
Casino Royale (2006)
AlthoughCasino Royaledoesn’t hide its contemporary influences (Bourne! Parkour! Poker!), it feels like a fresh start for the franchise that’s ready to make Bond a human being rather than an escapist fantasy.Daniel Craigbrings a soulful, vulnerable demeanor to the character and works to invest in his relationship with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), an accountant handling the money that 007 has to gamble to flush out terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). The action hits harder and the stakes feel more immediate, butCasino Royalecomes alive because it invests as Bond as an individual and cares about his relationship with a specific woman rather than treating the world as his playground.
Skyfall (2012)
Skyfallcurrently sits as the best Bond movie, not just because it avoids chasing trends and has a really strong plot, but because it’s a Bond film about being a Bond film. Some may findSam Mendes' 2012 effort overly meta, but I like that Bond marked the franchise’s 50th anniversary by asking what makes a Bond movie and how does the character move forward in a brave new world? Can an old dog learn new tricks?Skyfallanswers with a resounding “yes” as Bond is pushed out of his comfort zone while still retaining the qualities that make him so endearing.Skyfallis the Bond movie that’s constantly looking backwards and forwards while doing what James Bond does best.
