Every James Bond Movie, Ranked Worst to Best
With this month's arrival (finally!) of No Time to Die, there have now been 25 official films in the EON-produced James Bond film franchise based on author Ian Fleming's British spy character. In the gallery on this page, we rank every one of those films—plus two additional Bond features from outside producers—from worst to best based on their Metascores, which represent the consensus of a group of top professional film critics.
Right now, it's fairly easy to find most of the Bond films on streaming services (and if it's not on the streaming service you have, it likely will be shortly, as the films are deleted from and re-added to various services every few months). That could change in the future thanks to a recent deal by Amazon to acquire MGM, which currently holds the home video rights to most of the Bond catalog, though there are no definitive plans to make Prime Video the exclusive home of 007 ... yet.
All photos courtesy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios except Casino Royale (1967) by Columbia Pictures and Never Say Never Again by Warner Bros.
The year: 1971
The 007: Sean Connery
The (non-UK) location(s): Las Vegas, Baja California, Amsterdam, Cairo, Japan
The theme song: "Diamonds Are Forever" performed by Shirley Bassey
No, 007's first trip to outer space was still eight years away. But in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever, which saw Sean Connery returning to play Bond after a single film featuring George Lazenby in the role, he does attempt to thwart a plot by Blofeld (played this time by Charles Gray) to launch a laser weapon into space—and the action takes him through a test facility where a moon landing is being staged. The rare Bond film set almost entirely in the United States, Diamonds also returned Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton and even that film's opening theme vocalist, Shirley Bassey, but failed to match that earlier film's critical or commercial success.
Connery returned to the role after being tempted with a big payday and a greenlight for two additional non-Bond films of his choice, but it would be his final appearance as 007 in canon—though he would return to the character one last time in the 1980s for Never Say Never Again.
“Apart from a clumsy climax, a wry and exhilarating bit of entertainment.” —Time Out London