Many people have their own views on who the best James Bond actor is and what the best Bond movies are, and there are many articles written on the subject. Well, here's is my own top 10 James Bond movies
#10 For your Eyes Only (1981)
The ass-cheek-laden poster was more memorable that the movie itself (those are a pair of panties worn backwards, actually). Still, after the space-junky Moonraker, there’s relief in this film’s return to the basics. Roger Moore’s Bond searches for a nuclear sub’s tracking device, lost in a wreck at sea. En route to reclaiming what looks like a portable Blaupunkt stereo, he skis over some innocent Italians’ picnic lunch, takes out thugs in a hockey rink and scales a mountainside in a windy suspense sequence. Few of the Bond movies approach this film’s sunny Mediterranean allure, with beautiful location work in Greece (plus Fiddler on the Roof’s Topol as a robust, pistachio-loving comrade).Director: John Glen
Stars: Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson
#9 Licence to Kill (1989)
Timothy Dalton came into his own with his second and final take on Bond. Licence follows our determined operative as he goes rogue, hunting down a Latin American drug lord (Robert Davi) who literally fed Bond’s FBI confidant to the sharks. Dalton’s agonized performance (fueled by the character’s undying loyalty to his friend) anticipates the darker turn the series would take with Daniel Craig; this is one of the few entries where Bond seems truly physically and emotionally vulnerable as opposed to a pun-toting cipher. Almost every action scene—from the opening skydiving sequence to the finale’s gobsmacking truck-convoy assault—is cream of the crop. And a young Benicio Del Toro (playing a henchman) too? It’s a sorely underrated entry.Director: John Glen
Stars: Timothy Dalton, Robert Davi, Carey Lowell
#8 Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
With the promise of a 1.25-million-pound payday, Sean Connery returned for another go at the character he had helped turn into a cinema icon. He slips back into the role with ease, a little older but still effortlessly charismatic, even as many of the characters and incidents around him are too camp for comfort. Rocky Horror legend Charles Gray is perfectly, primly malicious as our agent’s recurring nemesis Blofeld (this time with a few carbon-copy doubles in tow), though queer-coded assassins Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) are shamelessly perverse.Director: Guy Hamilton
Stars: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray
#7 Thunderball (1965)
Following up Goldfinger was no picnic, but Sean Connery’s fourth outing demonstrated the series’ durability, cementing a brash, Playboy-era formula that yielded huge box office (it’s still the highest-grossing Bond, adjusting for inflation). Return to it now, and the effort is painfully obvious: Yes, we love spooky underwater sequences involving the conveyance of stolen A-bombs, but must there be endless minutes of them? Regardless, you’ve got some essential stuff here: the electric chair that incinerates an underperforming villain at a meeting, the swimming pool with sharks, the widescreen luxury.Director: Terence Young
Stars: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi
#6 GoldenEye (1995)
Pierce Brosnan was originally set to take over 007 duties when Roger Moore was hanging up his Walther PPK in the ’80s, but he was unable to get out of his Remington Steele contract. When he finally did step into the role with this 1995 entry, the Irish actor immediately established himself as the perfect bridge between the old and the new: sophisticated enough to sell the franchise’s vintage martini-and-tuxedo concept of style, yet sleek and savvy enough for the cyberespionage age. Even the creaky plot involving rogue agents, Cold-War rejects and a remote-controlled satellite seems thrilling and fresh with Brosnan at the helm.Director: Martin Campbell
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen
#5 Skyfall (2012)
When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong and agents around the world are exposed, MI6 is attacked forcing M to relocate the agency. These events cause her authority and position to be challenged by Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. With MI6 now compromised from both inside and out, M is left with one ally she can trust: Bond. 007 takes to the shadows - aided only by field agent, Eve (Naomie Harris) - following a trail to the mysterious Silva (Javier Bardem), whose lethal and hidden motives have yet to reveal themselves.Director: Sam Mendes
Stars: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris
#4 You Only Live Twice (1967)
Bond heads to Japan in a witty screenplay by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Roald Dahl. The space race is afoot (capsules go missing) and tensions run high between superpowers. Why not tip the balance into chaos? Finally, kitty-lapped supervillain Blofeld gets his close-up: the cosmetically scarred scowl of Donald Pleasence. (If one Bond film has inspired the Austin Powers series the most, it’s this installment.) Meanwhile, during his semi-off-hours, Connery’s Bond learns about docile Japanese women, drinks sake at the correct temperature and discovers a giant fake volcano.Director: Lewis Gilbert
Stars: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Tetsurô Tanba
#3 From Russia with Love (1963)
The first of many sequels drops the MI6 operative into a tried-and-true plot: A decoding device is stolen, and only Bond can retrieve it—which is what the cat-stroking Blofeld and his SPECTRE comrades are counting on. Though the movie is best known for giving us Robert Shaw’s juggernaut villain and Lotte Lenya’s shoe-knifing henchwoman, this is one of the franchise’s purest espionage entries—it suggests an alternate universe in which Bond was closer to a John le Carré spook than a gadget-wielding action hero. We love that latter version, of course, but Russia proved that a straightforward spy thriller equally suited the secret agent.Director: Terence Young
Stars: Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya, Daniela Bianchi
#2 Casino Royale (2006)
There were plenty of howls of protest after Daniel Craig was announced as the newest Bond (“The name’s Bland, James Bland” blared the London Daily Mirror). But he quickly put the naysayers to rest with his enthrallingly feral take on the secret agent. This is a Bond for the modern era, even more deliciously drool-worthy than his leading ladies (he’s the lust object rising from the sea in a cheeky homage to Dr. No’s Ursula Andress) and emotionally jagged in ways that none of his predecessors ever approached. Several peak action scenes (a wowzer of an opening parkour foot chase), a terrific villain in Mads Mikkelsen’s terrorist banker Le Chiffre and poker games as suspenseful as any explosive set piece easily make this our overall favorite.Director: Martin Campbell
Stars: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright
#1 Goldfinger (1964)
The Bond series already had two films under its belt by the time 007 matched wits with Gert Fröbe’s precious-metal obsessive, but the third time was the charm. This was the movie that perfected the template for what we consider a proper Bond movie: tricked-out sports cars and spy gadgets, eccentric supervillains and quirky sidekicks (the hat-throwing Oddjob), a name-dropping opening song and a fun, flirty, tongue-in-cheek version of Fleming’s hero. The earlier movies established Bond as Her Majesty’s most resourceful secret agent, a lover and a fighter. Goldfinger, however, made him a pop-culture icon that’s endured for decades.Director: Guy Hamilton
Stars: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton
