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: 1967
The 007: David Niven (among others)
The (non-UK) location(s): West Berlin
The theme song: "Casino Royale Theme" performed by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
Ian Fleming's first 007 novel is one of two to be filmed twice. (If you count a one-hour 1954 TV adaptation, it was actually filmed three times.) And this first big-screen attempt is easily the strangest, goofiest, and most incoherent James Bond movie in history. One of two non-canonical Bond films from an outside producer (Fleming originally sold the rights to the novel separately from a later deal with Eon Productions for the full franchise, though production was delayed for years by numerous disputes), this Casino Royale is, for one thing, a straight-up comedy—in fact, it's a satire of the Eon-produced Bond films, and one that manages to include both a flying saucer and Frankenstein's monster (played by future Darth Vader, David Prowse).
In addition to boasting five credited directors (including John Huston!) and a script written in part by an uncredited Billy Wilder and Terry Southern, the 1967 release features one of the oldest Bonds ever (David Niven was 57 when Casino Royale was filmed, but so was Roger Moore for his final Bond film) and an insane ensemble cast that includes Peter Sellers, Orson Welles (who so despised Sellers that he eventually refused to film scenes with him), Woody Allen (also an uncredited co-writer), William Holden, George Raft, Deborah Kerr, Jacqueline Bisset, Peter O'Toole, and original Bond girl Ursula Andress. Oh—and many of those actors (including Andress) play James Bond, or at least a version of him. Needless to say, it's not the best film for any of those stars, though the soundtrack (by Burt Bacharach) is pretty great.
“A film of astounding sloppiness, an insult to the Bond name (most likely deliberate) and a dark spot on the resumes of all involved (surely unintentional).” —Variety
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|