Rank all the Bond Films!

saint mark wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

QOS is taking a real drubbing.

It is an aweful movie, imho.

Indeed.

1. THUNDERBALL
2. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
3. DR. NO
4. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
5. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
6. LICENCE TO KILL
7. GOLDFINGER
8. CASINO ROYALE
9. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
10. MOONRAKER
11. GOLDENEYE
12. OCTOPUSSY
13. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
14. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
15. LIVE AND LET DIE
16. QUANTUM OF SOLACE
17. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
18. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
19. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
20. A VIEW TO A KILL
21. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
22. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
23. DIE ANOTHER DAY

Toppers wrote:

1. THUNDERBALL
2. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
3. DR. NO
4. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
5. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

Same top five films as me.

You're in my good books now, Toppers.

Toppers wrote:

1. THUNDERBALL
2. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
3. DR. NO
4. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
5. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
6. LICENCE TO KILL
7. GOLDFINGER
8. CASINO ROYALE
9. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
10. MOONRAKER
11. GOLDENEYE
12. OCTOPUSSY
13. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
14. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
15. LIVE AND LET DIE
16. QUANTUM OF SOLACE
17. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
18. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
19. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
20. A VIEW TO A KILL
21. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
22. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
23. DIE ANOTHER DAY

A very solid ranking, indeed. I'd bump FYEO, Spy and TND a bit, but those are very minor quibbles.

Perfect Bond films

1. For Your Eyes Only
2. From Russia with Love
3. The World is Not Enough
4. The Living Daylights
5. Never Say Never Again

Near-perfect Bond films

6. Diamonds are Forever
7. GoldenEye
8. Dr. No
9. Octopussy
10. Live and Let Die

Fun and entertaining, but with numerous problems

11. The Man with the Golden Gun
12. You Only Live Twice
13. Moonraker
14. Goldfinger
15. Tomorrow Never Dies

Not great, but certainly watchable if I'm in the right mood

16. The Spy Who Loved Me
17. Licence to Kill
18. A View to a Kill
19. Die Another Day
20. Thunderball

Bottom of the Barrel - at least as Bond films - I really don't want to watch them ever again

21.Casino Royale '54 (The Barry Nelson one)
22. Quantum of Solace
23. Casino Royale '67 (The David Niven one)
24. Casino Royale '06 (the Daniel Craig one)
25. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Well now, I say there old pussy, that'll rattle a few cages!

Strong top 4! Great to see love for TWINE! NSNA above all else and TB so low is unforgivable.

1. Dr. No
2. From Russia With Love
3. Thunderball
4. The Living Daylights
5. For Your Eyes Only
6. Diamonds Are Forever
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Goldfinger
9. The Man With the Golden Gun
10. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

This was done through hazy recollections of how well I liked each film, some of which I haven't seen in years.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
From Russia With Love
For Your Eyes Only
Goldfinger
Casino Royale '06
Thunderball
Licence To Kill
Dr. No
The Spy Who Loved Me
The Living Daylights
You Only Live Twice
GoldenEye
Live And Let Die
Diamonds Are Forever
Moonraker
Quantum Of Solace
Octopussy
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
Never Say Never Again
A View To A Kill
Casino Royale '67
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day

Some films might be too high (Spy, Twice, and Diamonds), others might be too low (Daylights, Octopussy, and TND). I'll rerank them whenever I can finish a Bondathon.

No reasonable person can dispute the top and the bottom of your ranking, Tubinator.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

No reasonable person can dispute the top and the bottom of your ranking, Tubinator.

I respectfully disagree, Khan. To the extent that you're merely saying, "I agree with the top and bottom of your rankings, Tubinator", there's nothing for me to object to, but can no one really love DAD or hate OHMSS and still be reasonable? We are after all talking about matters of aesthetic taste, not metaphysics (where it is nigh-on impossible to believe in, say, a flat earth and still be reasonable).

Now, I can't make an argument in favor of DAD, since it's pretty low on my rankings. But I can make a reasonable argument against OHMSS. Most people will probably disagree with it (which is fine), but it is a reasonable argument. Here goes:

OHMSS is my least favorite Bond film. Part of the problem is that it's based on my least favorite Fleming novel. Fleming's prose got strangely cluttered in OHMSS - he felt the need to constantly name-drop brands or French terminology, as if he needed to distract the reader from the banality of his story. Tracy doesn't have a personality. It's remarkable that the woman Bond marries is much less well drawn than characters like Tatiana, Pussy or Honeychile. She's simply "a bird with a wing down, or both wings down", as if that is a legitimate way to sum up a person's character. Both Fleming and the film have Bond "fall in love" after he's just shagged the girl(s) up in Piz Gloria. Fleming (and to a lesser extent the movie) constantly create implausible situations just so we can get to Bond cradeling his dead wife at the end. Blofeld is the world's most wanted fugitive, but finds time to drive around in a car (a sportscar in the novel, if I remember right) to shoot at Bond in broad daylight. In the film, MI6 won't attack Piz Gloria because . . . the UN said so? Since when did the UN make decisions like that (and mentioning the Security Council is worthless, because the UK has veto power there). The plot of the book and novel are constructed so that Bond must save Tracy. Draco must help help Bond. Tracy must save Bond. Bond must marry Tracy. And Blofeld and Bunt must kill Tracy. I feel manipulated by how these events play out. They don't feel organic or natural. They feel forced, as though Fleming and the film are forcing me to be emotionally moved. "See, Bond is in love with Tracy, because he just said so!!!" "Tracy is dead. Isn't this sad?!!?! Cry, dammit, cry! . . . Wait, stop crying, we have to blast the Bond theme over the end credits . . ."

So, I think my main problem with the movie is the same as my problem with CR. Both seem to be message movies, in that they tell us "important things" about Bond's character. But neither really do anything to Bond's character. Bond doesn't change in the course of either movie, other than that he is in love, for unspecified reasons. Mind you, I've no problem with Bond getting married and then losing his wife. When I read Fleming in order, I simply skip from TSWLM to YOLT, and assume that Bond married and lost his wife in the intervening time. And the funny thing is, Bond's marriage has more emotional impact on me this way. The references to Bond's marriage in TSWLM, FYEO and LTK films are very effective, because they are short and to the point, and they hint at places of deep pain in Bond's character that he won't openly show. The marriage and murder only need to be mentioned (or briefly depicted) to have their impact. It's like the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents in the Batman universe. For decades that scene was briefly shown in comic book after comic book, and everyone got the point. Bruce Wayne is driven by the deaths of his parents. We understood how the death of parents could change someone, just as we can understand how the death of a wife might change Bond. We don't need it spelled out ad infinitum to us, certainly not as incompetently as Fleming spelled out Bond's marriage or Tim Burton spelled out the murder of Bruce's parents (making the Joker the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents still has to be one of the stupidest moves in cinema history). Even Batman Begins, which is not an incompetent movie, shows how unnecessary backstory is to a pulp character (which is what Bond and Batman both are). Nolan spends hours slowly building up Bruce's character, only for us to end up exactly where we should have started, with Bruce as Batman, and the heck with all the intervening psychobabble. You simply can't do emotional arcs with pulp characters. It wouldn't work with Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Horatio Hornblower or Sherlock Holmes, and it doesn't work with Batman or Bond. Mind you, you can subtly change the character over time. I like how younger Roger Moore is an aggressive bastard in LALD and TMWTGG, but has mellowed into a calmer (and towards the girls, almost paternal figure) in some of his later films. But that's not an emotional arc, just a slow evolution with time and age.

So a huge problem of OHMSS for me is what many people consider to be its main strength. It's a close adaptation of Fleming's novel. What about elements of the film divorced from the novel? Well, Peter Hunt proves why it's good he never directed another Bond film. The Bond/Tracy romance is bad enough, but showing it in a montage makes it worse. We have no idea what these characters are saying to each other, and why they are falling in love. We're just ordered to accept it (nevermind that Bond is leering over Playboy within a few minutes). Hunt's fondness for "crash editing" (which had questionable effects on the early Bond films he worked on) here ruins most of the action scenes, other than the attack on Piz Gloria and Bond's ski escape. The sped-up editing (borrowed from Adam West's Batman, and complete with overly loud sounds for the punches) completes the ruin of the action. We are currently in a phase of cinema history where it's unimportant to action directors if the audience can actually follow the action. The Bourne movies (with their quick-cutting and shake-cams) exemplify this. But apparently the late 60s was another such period, because we get a lot of incomprehensible action in OHMSS. The most notable example is the fight in the hallway before Draco's office. There are a lot of close-ups of legs and arms and a ludicrously echoing soundtrack, but in the end, it's as much a muddle as how Bond disabled all those agents in the elevator in QOS. Hunt even adds in action to, I suppose, distract us from the new Bond and the emotional plot he must hold up. The trouble is, this action is never explained. Who were those two men who tried to kill Bond on the beach? Who did they work for? It's just an excuse for some action (though again, it's badly done action. When Bond and one of the goons are in the water, it's nigh on impossible to tell who's who).

And all this points to the problems of casting in OHMSS. Rigg and Savalas are good actors, but they look totally misplaced. When Rigg does her "thy dawn" recitation, all I can think is that I'd rather be watching a movie with these two as the leads, perhaps an Avengers film with Rigg as Emma Peel and Savalas as the bad guy. But Rigg is too strong-willed to be convincing as a woman on the verge of suicide. She looks quite self-possessed throughout the film. And Savalas doesn't strike me as Blofeld, anymore than the male model Lazenby is convincing as Bond. In fact, OHMSS is full of minor actors who look more appropriate for the lead roles than the leads do. The guy who has the shoe next to him during the Baccarat game (when Tracy comes up and loses) looks more appropriate for Blofeld than Savalas. Several of Draco's men look much more like Bond than Lazenby does. The girl playing Olympe looks more appropriate as Fleming's Tracy (albeit her hair is the wrong color) than Rigg. And so on. Even Ilse Steppat, who is perfectly cast, manages to muck up her role. She ruins Bond/Hilly's "stiffening breeze" comment by being clearly on the verge of laughing when she says, "Is anything the matter, Sir Hillary?" And that's inexcusable corpsing from a woman so often lauded for her "professionalism".

Thankfully, the PTS of DAF starts in Japan, where YOLT ended, so during Bondathons I can skip straight from one to another, and pretend OHMSS never happened. And since I don't like CR or OHMSS (even in the Fleming versions), I just conflate Vesper and Tracy in my mind as a woman Bond loved and married a long time ago, but she was killed. I watch all the Bond movies (well, at least the Connery/Moore/Dalton/Brosnan Bond movies) assuming that Tracy was killed a while back, and that explains Bond's present personality.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

No reasonable person can dispute the top and the bottom of your ranking, Tubinator.

Indeed not

Excellent little dissertation there Right Pussy Wrong. I can't disagree with your summation of OHMSS, either the book or the film. All fair and reasoned comment. Mind you, I haven't read the book in eons, but I do watch OHMSS regularly, at least twice a year, as I do all the Bond films, even the last two.
I've got OHMSS ranked a solid 7th in my rankings though, behind the 6 Connery films. I hold these first 7 films in special, exalted high regard. OHMSS has it's flaws, in that it does strain credibility. The plot is somewhat contrived, but none of that matters to me because the film is so well presented, and Lazenby IMO is practically flawless as Bond. Connery is of course the perfect screen Bond. He is the template. He defined the on-screen character (with help from Young of course) But Lazenby IMO has been the only truly worthy successor. Laz looks like Bond, but as importantly he can move like the young Bond. He is lethal. He is absolutely believable as a suave action-agent. Just like Sean. Both Sean and Laz had the advantage of being cast as Bond, as young men, which IMO is how it should have continued to be. So when I watch OHMSS, I believe Bond is real. Craig does also come across as very convincingly lethal but so does Bruce Willis. But what Willis and Craig have in common, is that neither look like Bond. ie tall dark and handsome, but with the added component of deadly, separating the good Bond actor, from the likes of Cary Grant or Rock Hudson, neither of whom bring the deadly.
I like OHMSS mostly because Laz brings the Bond, but also because it's a grand sweeping Bond adventure in the Fleming/60's/Eon tradition, with outlandish villains and story, an interesting Bond ally, deadly killer henchmen, action, colour, girls galore and topped off by Barry's usual brilliant scoring, which very much enhances, the danger, suspense and excitment.
My take on the death of Tracy is that I was very much unaffected. I hadn't read the book at the time, but I'd seen enough Bond films to know that Bond was not a married man. I figured she was dead meat or would be written out between films, as soon as the wedding scene started, and sure enough.
I was momentarily affected by Laz's very moving, very convincing reaction, but was relieved when the familiar Bond theme came up, and the Bond world was returned to normal. Bond would grieve, but Bond would be back!
I think DAF follows OHMSS quite nicely with Bond on the warpath, two years later, having finally tracked down Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Welcome to Hell Blofled!!! :shock:

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

Even Batman Begins, which is not an incompetent movie (. . .)

Apologies, but I stopped reading right there.

Rankings updated and adjusted to include QoS's formal removal from the EON canon.

1. DAF
2. GF
3. TB
4. YOLT
5. DN
6. FRWL
7. OHMSS
8. LALD
9. TMWTGG
10. MR.
11. TSWLM
12. OP
13. FYEO
14. AVTAK
15. LTK
16. TLD
17. GE
18. DAD
19. TWINE
20. TND
21. CR.

Removed from canon due to its' actually being a subvervise anti-Bond film

QoS.

You're as ruthless as any Cheka officer, tiff. ;)

CJB wrote:

You're as ruthless as any Cheka officer, tiff. ;)

Well I think Tiffanywint's method is a sound one. This idea of "canon" in fiction (especially to the ludicrously micromanaged extent people like George Lucas have taken it) is absurd. Nothing is inviolate and untouchable, and if you don't like something done with or to your favorite fcitional character, just pretend it never really happened. Roger Moore haters can pretend MR and AVTAK never happened, for instance. Dalton haters can ignore LTK. Mind you, EON's love for selling Bond films in boxed sets makes this harder for Bond fans, but it is possible (just trade-in the movies you don't like to Amazon. You get rid of a movie you loathe and get gift cards you can use to get stuff you'll actually like).

My personal canon includes all of Fleming's works except CR and OHMSS (but none of the continuation stuff) and all of the Connery/Moore/Dalton/Brosnan films. I just pretend Lazenby/Craig/Niven/Nelson never played Bond. It makes me happier and makes me less inclined to yell at people with different views. If someone else on these boards loves Lazenby and Craig and acts as though Brosnan or Moore never happened, well power to them.

I should note that I'm not trying to convince myself that Craig doesn't exist or that his films aren't "official". They are. I just ignore his films in the same way that some Star Wars fans ignore the prequel trilogy.

CJB wrote:

You're as ruthless as any Cheka officer, tiff. ;)

Surprised it took me this long. I'll still watch it though, if only for Olga, and to laugh at that miserable excuse of a Bond-villain, Elvis, getting his pants blown off. Craig tossing Mathis in the dumpster is good for a laugh as well. So is any scene with Dench prattling on about trust. Actually the whole film is great comedy, its so bad.

If I wanted to be a real purist though, the canon would include exactly 6 films, and a lesser but still worthy 1983 re-make.

CJB wrote:

You're as ruthless as any Cheka officer, tiff. ;)

Putin the wood to QOS since 2012.

This is very hard to do, since mine are constantly switching, but I'll try anyway.

1. GoldenEye- the best; there hasn't ever been any resident of my #1 spot except GoldenEye!
2. From Russia with Love
3. A View to a Kill
4. Tomorrow Never Dies
5. License to Kill
6. Octopussy
7. Live and Let Die
8. For Your Eyes Only
9. Diamonds Are Forever
10. The Living Daylights
11. The World is not Enough
12. Thunderball
13. Casino Royale
14. The Spy Who Loved Me
15. Dr. No
16. Quantum of Solace
17. The Man with the Golden Gun
18. Die Another Day
19. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
20. Moonraker
21. You Only Live Twice
22. Goldfinger

Hi! Welcome to the forums. Going by your ranking, I think we'll get on just fine. :)

Welcome aboard, Beastie.

A most unusual ranking! A ranking calculated to rankle, if I do say so.

FieldsMan wrote:

Hi! Welcome to the forums. Going by your ranking, I think we'll get on just fine. :)

Haha, thanks FieldsMan! I noticed your favorite was TND, and I must say it's good to see some Brosnan support!

Welcome, 00Beast. I approve of your AVTAK love.

CJB wrote:

Welcome, 00Beast. I approve of your AVTAK love.

Thank you CJB! I'm always curious at the way people dislike it so much. It's one of the best in my book!