Rank all the Bond Films!

I have been thinking long and hard ( snigger ) about this all day now and, having re-adjusted it a countless number of times, I finally feel that my definitive ranking is looking stable enough to be released into the outside world for atleast a week or so until it is inedibly (is that how its spelt???) changed yet again. You may be shocked, you may be surprised and you may even be downright offended but please, scrutinise as you see fit:

01) Dr No / From Russia With Love
03) GoldenEye
04) The Living Daylights
05) Thunderball
06) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
07) The World Is Not Enough
08) For Your Eyes Only
09) Goldfinger / You Only Live Twice / Moonraker
12) Tomorrow Never Dies
13) Octopussy
14) Casino Royale
15) Quantum of Solace
16) Die Another Day
17) Licence To Kill
18) A View To A Kill
19) The Man with the Golden Gun
20) Live and Let Die
21) Diamonds Are Forever
22) The Spy Who Loved Me

Interesting ranking there Brooky! I love seeing GoldenEye, From Russia with Love, The Living Daylights, and For Your Eyes Only all in your top ten! They are always in mine as well. However, I am curious about Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, and Moonraker in your top ten. I for one have those four as my bottom four, with OHMSS and GF being numbers 21 and 22. Also, what's with TSWLM, DAF, LALD being the bottom three? Haha, sorry for so many questions!

Well instead of listing my "best" films (where films such as GF and CR would probably top the list), I am listing my favourite films by which films entertain me most and have the most rewatchability. For example, one of the reasons why GE is so high is simply because of nostalgia (although it is also a good film). My mind tends to change like the weather regarding the films though and many of them I have skewed opinions of because they are either fresh in my mind or I have not seen them for a good while.

I am more concerned at how you can have DN so low and yet have AVTAK and LTK so high!

Nice listing Brooky! Your top 10 are a reorganised version of mine, except I have TND at the top (and hence, GF, YOLT and MR are out). Great to see TWINE neighboured by FYEO and OHMSS, and DN getting the love it deserves. I too have TSWLM and LALD lower on my list, with DAD and MR.

Brooky wrote:

Well instead of listing my "best" films (where films such as GF and CR would probably top the list), I am listing my favourite films by which films entertain me most and have the most rewatchability. For example, one of the reasons why GE is so high is simply because of nostalgia (although it is also a good film). My mind tends to change like the weather regarding the films though and many of them I have skewed opinions of because they are either fresh in my mind or I have not seen them for a good while.

I am more concerned at how you can have DN so low and yet have AVTAK and LTK so high!

Well for me, and like you said, AVTAK and LTK both have heavy nostalgia with me. Still though, I love both of them as being great movies with or without nostalgia. As for Dr. No, it's sort of a difficuly situation. I've always liked DN, and even have had it in my top ten at times, but when I look at so many of the other greats, I struggle to make room and it becomes DN that has to go.

10/10 (perfect)
1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. From Russia with Love

9/10 (excellent)
3. The Living Daylights
4. Goldfinger
5. GoldenEye
6. Thunderball

8/10 (very good)
7. Casino Royale
8. The Spy Who Loved Me
9. Licence to Kill
10. Dr. No
11. Octopussy

7/10 (good)
12. The World Is Not Enough
13. The Man with the Golden Gun
14. You Only Live Twice
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. Quantum of Solace
17. Live and Let Die

6/10 (ok)
18. Die Another Day
19. A View to a Kill
20. Moonraker

5/10 (mediocre)
21. Diamonds Are Forever
22. Tomorrow Never Dies

1) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2) Goldfinger
3) From Russia With Love
4) Moonraker

The rest is perpetually up in the air, with a preference for the films of the 60s/70s.

1. FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE
FRWL is probably the closest to hitting Fleming's tone while still maintaining the elements that make the Bond films popular -- Sean Connery's animal magnetism and a good sense of humour. The plot is clever, the locals exotic, the women beautiful, the villains ruthless, etc. etc. all while maintaining a palpable sense of late 50s/early 60s atmosphere that is intoxicating. It's a little said to say that the series never surpassed its second installment.

2. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
I firmly believe that OHMSS could have been the single greatest film in the series if a) the movies had adapted the novels in order instead of haphazardly and b) if Sean Connery had starred. Not to say George Lazenby is bad in his only outing as Bond, quite the reverse -- Lazenby brings a humanity and a vulnerability to the character that absolutely works for this story, but part of the power of the novel is the idea of Bond as burnt out and cynical, which leads to his spiritual rebirth when he falls in love with Tracy (and then furious vengeance in the next novel after she is killed). I feel this all would have been a lot more powerful for an audience if the continuity of the character was intact with Connery in the role.

3. DOCTOR NO
DN shares with FRWL a palpable Flemingesque atmosphere. You can practically feel the stench and the sweat and the smoke. Bond's introductory scene in legendary, of course, pretty much a near perfect example of script/performance/directing/editing synchronicity. But the scenes in Jamaica are equally fantastic. This all comes down to director Terrence Young, who remains the series single best director. The only thing letting down DN is its relatively low budget compared to the rest of the series, which occasionally leaves it with a bit of a TV movie feel.

4. GOLDFINGER
GOLDFINGER is classy as fuck. Damn, those silver three-piece suits Connery wears are fine. And the Aston? Puh-leeze. And this movie is fun, as well. But ultimately, everything that eventually destroyed the Bond series started here. The tongue-in-cheek tone, the wink-at-the-camera sensibility, it subtly undermines any sense of legitimate threat from Auric Goldfinger. DN and FRWL were charming and funny, but also deadly serious when the time came, when the villains began to close in on Bond. These elements, taken to the extreme, wreck the series, but here they are novel and fun and entertaining.

5. THUNDERBALL
This is the last time Connery is really good at Bond, although even here you can tell he's starting to half-ass it. Also, this is the last movie with "unseen face" Blofeld, who was actually the most effective version, IMO. The only reason it slips down below GF is the underwater sequences, they're always a chore when watching this otherwise fantastic entry.

6. CASINO ROYALE (2006)
When the movie hews close to the novel, it's classy and enjoyable, a fine return to form. When it strays, it starts to get stupid, feeling like a BOURNE knock-off or indulging in overly sentimental and false or silly sounding romantic dialogue. What we're left with is a good movie with some bad fat on it, but we're willing to forgive the flaws because we'd been starving for good Bond films for so long.

7. GOLDENEYE
Originally intended for Timothy Dalton, and we can only dream of how good it could have been with the trained thespian as Bond. As is, Pierce Brosnan rises to the occasion, portraying a kind of composite image Bond, with elements of all the previous portrayals melded into one mainstream appealing version. The show is really stolen by Sean Bean, who is excellant as the revenge obsessed Trevelyan. It's a good movie, which has in some places not aged well. Kinda like the N64 game.

8. LICENCE TO KILL
The first time the "Bond's gone rogue and is out for revenge" idea was done, and definitely the best. Dalton gives an electrifyingly good performance as Bond, despite an awful hairdo -- it's a very eighties Bond film that manages to have a darker, harder edge than most of the series. It's also simply a welcome change from the very rigid Bond formula up to that point. The biggest point against it is John Glen's utterly bland directorial style, and it's sin of starting the trope of "a female agent just as tough as Bond!" which has nearly sunk the series so many times.

9. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
Timothy Dalton's debut as Bond is absolutely perfect for about the first twenty-thirty minutes of the movie, as it adapts the LIVING DAYLIGHTS short story. Then he starts to fall in love with a rather mousy Russian cellist and ends up helping Afghan rebels against rogue Soviets and things start to fall apart, not helped by John Glen's utterly bland direction. But for a brief shining moment, you can understand why some fans continue to worship Dalton as the perfect adaptation of Fleming's Bond.

10. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
This is Roger Moore's best turn as Agent 007. It still kinda sucks. Also, John Glen's direction is utterly bland. These things being said, props must be given to a very Flemingesque story, a more serious Bond from Moore, and a restrained use of ridiculous gadgets and quips. On the other hand, the pedo-love-subplot is always awkward.

11. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
YOLT started the trend of taking nothing from the Fleming novel except some locations and character names. So it loses points for being totally ridiculous. On the other hand it gains points for being totally OTT awesome. Lewis Gilbert brings a great widescreen epic style to this entry that kinda makes it awesome despite being completely unFleming. The score is also one of John Barry's absolute bests. It was my favourite as a kid.

12. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
TSWLM is basically the same movie as YOLT only with Roger Moore instead of Connery, boats instead of spaceships, and Russians instead of Japanese. Same director, same complete abandonment of the novel save the title. It's basically all the things you liked about YOLT but with a lesser actor, lesser villain and you've seen it all before.

13. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
Its saving graces are a) it's still goddamn Connery, b) it acknowledges he's old and a dinosaur and this is kind've a neat version of Bond as a curmudgeon and c) Max von Sydow is Blofeld.

14. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
A jaded Connery was brought back by tons of money. Dangling story arcs from OHMSS are unceremoniously kicked aside, series villain Blofeld is made a joke, and director Guy Hamilton takes the campy nature of GF and ramps it up to 11, creating a trend that will define the series through the Roger Moore years. This is the beginning of the death of the James Bond series. That being said, there are some good things. The Wint/Kidd scenes are genuinely creepy in a very Fleming way, and Connery's "I don't give a single fuck about this movie" performance actually winds its way back to being entertaining -- better than "bored Connery" of TB and YOLT.

15. CASINO ROYALE (1954)
It's closer to the book than the Craig version at times (the game is baccarat, not poker) and Peter Lorre is Le Chiffre for cryin' out loud! So this weird little oddity is actually kinda awesome at times.

16. LIVE AND LET DIE
Moore's first Bond outing is basically DAF but with blaxploitation. The plot is nearly nonsensical, the jokes are stupid, the Southern Police Sergeant character is insufferable, Yaphet Kotto tries and fails as the villain. But Jane Seymour is attractive, Moore is probably better here than the near Adam West levels he later stoops to, and some sequences in the movie still do work quite well, even when they're being stolen from previous entries.

17. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
Pretty much one thing saves this movie: Christopher Lee as the title character, Scaramanga. Dude is classy as fuck. Everything else about this movie is silly, embarassing, dumb and forgettable.

18. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
I remember the title song's music video more than I remember individual scenes from this yawner. Bronson does his stupid painface throughout, while Denise Richards is the only well-endowed physicist who pronounces it noo-ku-lur.

19. CASINO ROYALE (1967)
Generally an incomprehensible mess, but sometimes hilariously fun, especially if you're in the right mood, which is a mood for late sixties farce.

20. A VIEW TO A KILL
*CREEEAK! CREEAAAAK! CRRRRREEAKKK!* Those are the sounds of Roger Moore's bones as he moves from scene to scene in this GF (and SUPERMAN) rip-off from blando director John Glen. Moore's about 92 in this, romancing a girl young enough to be his granddaughter. About the only saving grace is the always welcome Christopher Walken, playing a Nazi superhuman experiment turned Silicon Valley ruthless capitalist.

21. MOONRAKER
It's Bond! In SPPAAAACE! Can we have some of that sweet Star Wars money now? I would say four things ultimately sunk the Bond series, all of them largely occurring after Harry Saltzman left EON Productions in the hands of the Broccoli family. 1) an overreliance on over-the-top gadgets and camp, 2) moving further and further from the Fleming novels, 3) Becoming followers of trends rather than maintaining leadership in the action movie genre and 4) Woeful attempts to modernise the character and his politics. MR is boring, predictable, stupid, practically a parody of itself, and features a laser gun battle in the climax.

22. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
I have seen this movie fewer times than any other entry in the series. Newspaperman wants to start WWIII to sell more newspapers, Bond F***S Teri Hatcher, and there's a Chinese "female agent just as tough as Bond!" A disappointing follow-up to GE and utterly forgettable (and stupid).

23. DIE ANOTHER DAY
Invisible car. Diamond laser beam. Melting ice palace (the water level rises but the walls stay intact somehow). Halle Berry as "a female agent just as tough as Bond". Horribly CGI. Surfing Bond. Numerous other retarded elements I've blocked from my memory. DAD is a movie that wants to be the ultimate awesome anniversary Bond film and just fails on every single possible level. What's most disappointing is that the initial premise is cool -- the idea of Bond being held captive and then turned loose and abandoned by MI6. Oh, check off the "rogue Bond" cliché as well. There are elements from three good Bond novels here, but the movie is too retarded to execute any of them well.

24. OCTOPUSSY
Moore saves the world by disarming a nuclear bomb in the middle of a circus while dressed as a clown -- kind've a perfect metaphor for his tenure as the character. Maud Adams is boring, the villains are unmemorable, the gadgets ridiculous and the direction, from John Glen, utterly bland. About the only noteworthy thing about this movie is its ludcirous title.

25. QUANTUM OF SOLACE
Fucking awful. To this day the ONLY Bond film I do not own. I have not seen it since a free preview screening I went to. Utter trash. A cheap BOURNE rip-off with near incoherant "artistic" editing, an incredibly lame villain, an impenetrable plot, ridiculous left-wing politics, and a host of clichés including "rogue Bond" and "tough female agent". An utterly disappointing follow-up to CR that made me open my eyes and realize that basically as long as EON and the Broccolis control the film rights to Bond, the series is in trouble.


To be fair, the rankings from #11 downwards are pretty fluid, although QOS is consistently the bottom.

I'm happy to read your thoughts, F-S.

And it's interesting to note how so many people, myself included, rank LTK and TLD cheek-by-jowl. And I don't think it's because they're the Daltons. Truly, they are just evenly matched films in terms of quality.

Yeah, I just wish they were better, really. Dalton really outshines in them, but TLD has a really weak third act and love story. I think the whole "aging dinosaur, reflect on past mistakes" aspect of GE would've worked better with Dalton, an established Bond, in the role rather than newcomer Bronson, similar to how I feel the arc of OHMSS would've been more effective with Connery than Lazenby. Then again, I just can't quite picture Connery really going for the tears in the ending as effectively as Lazenby does.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

1. FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE
... maintaining a palpable sense of late 50s/early 60s atmosphere that is intoxicating. It's a little said to say that the series never surpassed its second installment.

I tend to feel this way every time I watch FRWL. Maybe it's just that the world became aesthetically uglier from the 70's onwards.

*shrugs*

I don't know how, but somehow those first two Terrence Young films manage to feel like the tone of Fleming's prose.

right idea, wrong pussy wrote:

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.

This is a really thoughtful analysis and I thank you for that. You bring up some points I have felt at a guttural level at times when having watched OHMSS. However, the critiques, which I don't agree with, but understand and see, have never diminished my enjoyment of the film. I would like to address the following critiques you raise:

1. "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"

The montage also struck me as odd at one point, because it doesn't actually demonstrate Bond and Tracy falling in love. In it's defense however, the montage scene was a stylistic choice of the times. Many "falling in love" scenes were depicted in music montage scenes this way at this time. "Love Story" comes to mind. Secondly, words do not need to convey love. Love can exist and grow between two people simply by sharing in all of these experiences and adventures together. If you have ever been in love, you know there is a strong feeling in something as simple as two people gazing into each other's eyes over a nice Sunday drive. There is peace and contentment in that. Thirdly, in the context of the Bond series, we had never seem this type of tranquil romance with Bond before in any of preceding films, so this scene is something unique and special for the character. Lastly, to segue in the next point, these scenes merely depict a romance; young love. Bond hasn't necessarily committed himself to her completey yet.

2. "Both Fleming and the film have Bond "fall in love" after he's just shagged the girl(s) up in Piz Gloria."... "nevermind that Bond is leering over Playboy within a few minutes"

I also had a conflicting feeling about this when I first saw the film. However, as I say above, Bond and Tracy are in a romance, not necessarily committed to each other just yet. Bond is still who he is, the womanizer. I think the story shows the complexity of the character, that just because he is starting to fall in love with someone doesn't mean his womanizing tendencies are completely erased overnight. If this happened to everybody, then we would have nearly a 0 divorce rate. Love can transform people, but it is not always an immediate complete 180 U-Turn in character. That is the misconception about love. It still takes work from the individual to change oneself.

3. "Bond doesn't change in the course of either movie, other than that he is in love, for unspecified reasons."

I think the turning point though is, in spite of Bond shagging all the girls up in Piz Gloria, when Bond stumbles into the ice rink. In a rare instance, Bond is in a moment of fear and vulnerability. Suddenly, Tracy of all people skates up to him. The look she gives him says it all. In that instance, Bond knows she is the ONE. What we have here is Tracy saving Bond's life just as he had saved her life in the beginning. The two now realize they need each other, and this brings them together.

As far as the other points you mention, I do agree to an extent. Yes, the jump-cut editing is a bit much, and makes it hard to follow some of the fight scenes. But we had seen this effect used in the earlier Bond films too, most notably in the PTS of Thunderball.

Quote :

2. "Both Fleming and the film have Bond "fall in love" after he's just shagged the girl(s) up in Piz Gloria."... "nevermind that Bond is leering over Playboy within a few minutes"

I also had a conflicting feeling about this when I first saw the film. However, as I say above, Bond and Tracy are in a romance, not necessarily committed to each other just yet. Bond is still who he is, the womanizer. I think the story shows the complexity of the character, that just because he is starting to fall in love with someone doesn't mean his womanizing tendencies are completely erased overnight. If this happened to everybody, then we would have nearly a 0 divorce rate. Love can transform people, but it is not always an immediate complete 180 U-Turn in character. That is the misconception about love. It still takes work from the individual to change oneself.

Nicely said. I think the key dialogue here is:

Draco: Mr Bond, he´s... he´s in love with you?

Tracy: That may come too... some day.

Ranking for fun again, and I doubt much has changed, though it might have.

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

Largo's Shark wrote:

Quote :

2. "Both Fleming and the film have Bond "fall in love" after he's just shagged the girl(s) up in Piz Gloria."... "nevermind that Bond is leering over Playboy within a few minutes"

I also had a conflicting feeling about this when I first saw the film. However, as I say above, Bond and Tracy are in a romance, not necessarily committed to each other just yet. Bond is still who he is, the womanizer. I think the story shows the complexity of the character, that just because he is starting to fall in love with someone doesn't mean his womanizing tendencies are completely erased overnight. If this happened to everybody, then we would have nearly a 0 divorce rate. Love can transform people, but it is not always an immediate complete 180 U-Turn in character. That is the misconception about love. It still takes work from the individual to change oneself.

Nicely said. I think the key dialogue here is:

Draco: Mr Bond, he´s... he´s in love with you?

Tracy: That may come too... some day.

Not to mention that the film takes place in the swingin' 60s ffs...sensibilities were markedly different back then.

00Beast wrote:

1. GoldenEye
.
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
.
.
.
.
.
21. Goldfinger
22. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I think your list is upside down.

Drax wrote:

00Beast wrote:

1. GoldenEye
.
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
.
.
.
.
.
21. Goldfinger
22. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I think your list is upside down.

Or right side up, depending on how you look at it. I don't prefer the '60s Bond movies like I do the '80s and '90s Bond movies. Call me crazy for not adoring the "Golden '60s" but it's not my cup of tea compared with the '80s/'90s Bond movies.

00Beast wrote:

Drax wrote:

I think your list is upside down.

Or right side up, depending on how you look at it.

It would be right side up, if I held my laptop upside down.

Here is my new and updated list. As you can see, there has been a lot of big changes, most notably to LALD, TMWTGG, TSWLM, MR, LTK, TND and TWINE. No matter how much I change around my list I am never satisfied with it because in my head before I start my list I always immediately think which Bond films are 'Top 5 Material' or 'Top 10 Material' but unfortunately there just isn't room to cram them all in. I still feel that TB and TSWLM are too high and that GF, OHMSS, DAF, MR, OP, AVTAK, LTK, TND and TWINE are too low but if I were to make any changes then it would only wind up that even more films would look even more out of place. Who knows, in a few weeks I will most probably have changed it all around again anyway.

01) The Living Daylights
02) The Man with the Golden Gun
03) From Russia with Love
04) Thunderball
05) Dr No
06) GoldenEye
07) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
08) Goldfinger
09) Casino Royale
10) You Only Live Twice
11) Licence to Kill
12) Live and Let Die
13) For Your Eyes Only
14) The Spy Who Loved Me
15) Octopussy
16) Moonraker
17) Quantum of Solace
18) Tomorrow Never Dies
19) Diamonds Are Forever
20) Die another Day
21) A View to a Kill
22) The World Is Not Enough

Perilagu Khan wrote:

I'm happy to read your thoughts, F-S.

Ditto, very good read, especially the summations of your top films, FRWL, OHMSS and DN. I think you got GF nicely sized up as well.

And I thought I was hard on QoS

I have decided to compile the latest full ranking from each and every member of 'Bond and Beyond' to have posted in this thread in order to compile an 'ULTIMATE' list that expresses the forum's views in general. I did the list by adding up the ranking of every film in the franchise as a point and the one that had the lowest number of points come out on top with the rest following although I apologise if I am a few points out on occasion. This should be interesting:

01) From Russia with Love - 145
02) On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 223
03) Thunderball - 294
04) The Living Daylights - 303
05) Dr No - 316
06) Goldfinger - 369
07) Casino Royale - 375
08) GoldenEye - 410
09) Licence To Kill - 492
10) For Your Eyes Only - 517
11) The Spy Who Loved Me - 542
12) Octopussy - 580
13) You Only Live Twice - 583
14) Live and Let Die - 611
15) Diamonds Are Forever - 616
16) Moonraker - 662 / Quantum of Solace - 662
18) A View to a Kill - 736
19) The Man with the Golden Gun - 742
20) Tomorrow Never Dies - 758
21) The World Is Not Enough - 773
22) Die another Day - 890


This list was compiled from the rankings of the following members:
00Beast
00Twelve
bondfan06
Call Me Hilly
Capsule in Space
Chang
Chigawa
CIS
CJB
clublos
colly
dalton
danslittlefinger
dirtymind
dr. strangelove
EyelessCougar
Fairbairn-Sykes
FG Wells
FieldsMan
G section
GeneralGogol
Gravity's Silhouette
Hilly
James Bond
Klown
Krilencu
lachesis
lalala2004
M
Makeshift Python
MBajle
Mr. Trevelyan
Perilagu Khan
Prince Kamal Khan
right idea, wrong pussy
RobDudley
Roger O. Thornhill
saint mark
Salom'e
SJK91
The White Tuxedo
tiffanywint
Toppers
Tubes
Vesper
Willard Whyte

That's both industrious and fascinating, Jimbo! Well done. The only real surprise there--at least for me--is TB at No.3. I knew the film was highly regarded on BaB, but I didn't know it was that highly regarded!

Nice work JB! That's a decent sized sample. Interesting I did the same exercise on the old Mi6 board about a year and a half ago with a sample of over a 100 lists, and came up with similar results. I used the same methodology except I assigned 21 points to first place votes and 0 to last place, to ensure that DAD actually earned any points that it got ;)

You've got the same top 7. I called it the Super 7 as there was such a disparity between #7 and #8.

Again FRWL cleans up. Again OHMSS is a strong second, although on my list CR was within striking range, but on this fresher list, CR has fallen back leaving much separation between FRWL and OHMSS and the rest of the Super 7. If I recall, within the Super 7, TB and TLD were middle pack, with GF and DN fluid in the 6 and 7 spot.

However based on your list, GE seems to be making a bid for inclusion in a Super 8, as there is big separation between the top 8 and what lies below.

It would be interesting to do another compilation at the end of the year with the SF results. SF will probably skew a little higher than it should, being freshly bloomed and new.

James Bond wrote:

the latest full ranking from each and every member of 'Bond and Beyond' to have posted in this thread

Superb work, James Bond. And I must also congratulate several members for some really sterling posts on the previous pages (Wrong Pussy, FG Wells, F-Sykes, to name just a few). Riveting stuff, and a great example of the quality of posters this forum has attracted.