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: 1999
The 007: Pierce Brosnan
The (non-UK) location(s): Spain, Azerbaijan, Istanbul (not Constantinople)
The theme song: "The World Is Not Enough" performed by Garbage
Brosnan's third Bond film was directed by Michael Apted (best known for Coal Miner's Daughter and the groundbreaking documentary 7 Up and its many sequels) and scripted by fellow franchise first-timers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who would go on to write each of the next six Bond films (including Daniel Craig's entire run as 007). Robert Carlyle, Sophie Marceau, and Denise Richards (widely lambasted for her portrayal of a nuclear physicist) also starred in a film that received slightly better reviews than its predecessor but still managed to finish dead last in a later Entertainment Weekly ranking of every Bond film. (And they aren't alone; other publications have also ranked it toward the bottom.)
The film marked the final performance by Desmond Llewelyn as the quartermaster Q. Llewelyn, who died in a car crash later that year (and would be replaced in the films by John Cleese), still stands as the actor with the most appearances in the franchise with 17.
“007 is undone by villainous scripting and misguided casting and acting in a couple of key secondary roles.” —Todd McCarthy, Variety
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