Every James Bond Movie, Ranked Worst to Best

The year: 1989

The 007: Timothy Dalton

The (non-UK) location(s): Key West, South America, "Isthmus City" (fictional)

The theme song: "Licence to Kill" performed by Gladys Knight

The fifth and final Bond film directed by John Glen (and no one has directed more) and the second and final outing for Dalton as Bond, Licence to Kill was the first film in the series that didn't take its title from a Fleming work. It's also the first entry in the series to be filmed entirely outside the UK.

The film has even less humor than the prior Dalton film, taking on a darker, more violent approach (and earning the first PG-13 rating in the series) as it finds Bond going rogue to avenge an attack on his friend and colleague, CIA agent Felix Leiter (played here by David Hedison). It also lacks any big-name actors (save Benicio del Toro, though he was unknown at the time the film was released). A commercial as well as critical disappointment, Licence to Kill was the lowest-grossing Bond film in 25 years in the United States—and the lowest ever, if you adjust grosses for inflation. Due to yet another legal battle over the film rights to Fleming's work, the franchise would next undergo a six-year hiatus, and the delay would cause Dalton to opt out of the final film in his contract, paving the way for his replacement by Pierce Brosnan.

“James Bond might as well be any of a dozen movie cops. For whatever reason, writers Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum have given us a hero without the suavity, the urbanity, the sophistication of the James Bond who set these particular movies apart. And when Bond is just another hero, the result is just another action movie. It's sometimes exciting, but it misses all the lovely touches that previous films in the series have provided.” —Joe Pollack, St. Louis Post-Dispatch