Daniel Craig in “Skyfall.” (Francois Duhamel/Sony)
The 23rd chapter in the cinematic adventures of the free world’s greatest spy opens in the United States tomorrow. (Well, IMAX today, if you want to spend 50 percent more than necessary for a movie that was not shot in the wider-lens format.)
Skyfall once again features James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, defending queen and country. Though as grand and sweeping as any Bond flick, Skyfall‘s plot is also one of the most intimate in the 50-year-old film series. (Pat Padua reviewed the film for DCist.)
But whether it features intelligent spycraft or a bunch of flashy gizmos exploding, the release of any new Bond film is cause for looking back on the series to date. With a half-century’s worth of 007 movies to consider, everyone has their favorite. Slate put the entire Bond canon—books, songs, Ian Fleming’s original novels—through its “Completist” wringer. That Isaac Chotiner holds a special regard for Roger Moore’s era is a little baffling, but one of the genius effects of the entire Bondian oeuvre is that there is a 007 for all moviegoers. Some prefer the flamboyance of Goldfinger, Live and Let Die or any of Pierce Brosnan’s outings; others go in for the smart espionage and heartfelt storytelling of From Russia With Love or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Even Daniel Craig’s last entry, 2008’s critically maligned Quantum of Solace, has its sincere defenders.
We asked our writers to name their favorite James Bond movies. Here’s what they said:
Martin Austermuhle: Licence to Kill. Timothy Dalton or bust! I should explain: Bond takes on Latin American drug kingpins. Way better than the usual Soviets or terrorists from who-knows-where. Also, a man is put in a compression chamber and made to explode. Gruesome. Dalton wasn’t suave like Connery or Craig—he was just an angry badass.
George Lazenby in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” (EON Productions)
Ian Buckwalter: For snow chases, I far prefer the sledding-on-a-cello-case sequence in The Living Daylights. Really sets a ridiculous tone for the rest of that movie.
The best Bond movie, however, is definitely On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Yeah, I know, but Lazenby, yadda yadda. But Lazenby isn’t NEARLY as bad as his unearned reputation—at the very least he’s worlds better than Moore, and probably better than Dalton as well; and it’s just that damn good. Diana Rigg is one of the best female leads in a Bond film ever; the love story is more convincing and less disposable than any other, which is surprising considering how excellent Peter Hunt also was at directing the action sequences, which are among the best in the series; it’s also just one of the best constructed stories in the series; and freaking Telly Savalas as Blofeld? Who loves ya, baby? Case closed.
James Calder: My favorites are Goldmember and 1967’s Casino Royale. (Editor’s note: James Calder is an actual British person.)
John Fleury: A View to a Kill is my favorite Bond movie, but often as one of my favorite so-bad-you-have-to-love 80s movies. Christopher Walken as Max Zorin sporting some bitchin’ glasses, Grace Jones—I simply need to point out she’s in the movie and my point is made—and Duran Duran doing a theme song that sounds like is was sponsored by a Tony Montana all-nighter makes it a total fucking classic.
Timothy Dalton in “The Living Daylights.” (EON Productions)
Benjamin R. Freed: You know how you’re never supposed to say how the newest Bond movie is the best? Well, I won’t do that with Skyfall, but I came awfully close after seeing it. Pat Padua’s review captures it much more extensively, but Sam Mendes’ greatest addition to the series is bringing in Roger Deakins as cinematographer. Skyfall, however you stack its adventurism against the other 22 movies, is the most visually exquisite Bond film, with perfect balances of color and shadow.
But if I had to pick a favorite to defend, it would be The Living Daylights. Like my colleague, I am partial toward Timothy Dalton’s portrayal of 007. Ian Fleming, introducing Bond in Casino Royale, described the agent’s face as “a taciturn mask: ironical, brutal, and cold.” Of the six actors to portray James Bond, two have achieved that: the current Bond, Daniel Craig, and Dalton. The Living Daylights also featured the first enjoyable plot after a string of duds that a visibly aging Roger Moore plodded his way through. Set in 1987, during the rise of glastnost and perestroika, it puts Bond in his last great Cold War mission by matching him against the last Soviet villains and craven arms-dealing mercenaries. The sequence with the Afghan mujahideen is a bit dated nowadays (for obvious reasons), but Maryam d’Abo’s frightened, but willing, cellist is also makes her one of the most believable Bond girls.
Brett Gellman: No takers for Moonraker? I kid, I kid.
Eddie Kim: GoldenEye, because I spent my childhood playing it on Nintendo 64. Also the Klobb is the worst gun in video-game history.
Andrea Kleis: Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton were my favorites until Daniel Craig—the last two movies (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) are my favorites and I can watch them over and over and over. OK, I can watch all of them over and over (and, sometimes do) except for the ones with Pierce Brosnan, which I HATE. My favorite character is Jaws because he’s just so ridiculous.
Chris Klimek: I see it is necessary for me to explain to you all why Sean Connery’s preferred Bond film is mine, too: From Russia with Love all the way.
It’s only the second film in the franchise, and the tropes are just starting to appear: Bond has a trick briefcase with a throwing knife and some gold coins hidden inside it, and it’s bobby-trapped with tear gas to deter prying hands, but that’s pretty tame as 007 gizmos go. More interestingly, Bond’s womanizing is actually integral to the plot of the movie, which concerns SPECTRE’s attempt to play the Brits and the Soviets against one another by getting one of their (hottest, youngest, most nubile) operatives to pose as a Soviet defector. In a quaint, kinky touch, SPECTRE’s Rosa Klebb films Bond and the Russian girl having sex while: 1. Using a very noisy film camera; 2. Watching them do it from behind one-way glass; 3. Smoking a cigarette like Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons.
Note, please, that I’m talking about the story! In a James Bond film! Because From Russia With Lovehas one!
The bad guy dispatched to kill 007 is Robert Shaw, 12 years before he makes himself immortal by giving the U.S.S. Indianapolis speech in Jaws, and he’s one of the all-time great Bond villians. Every time he addresses Connery as “Old Man,” you can see Connery wince. It’s fun.
I could go on, but I think that’s plenty.
Sean Connery in “From Russia With Love.” (EON Productions)
Catherine McCarthy: Thunderball is not the best Bond film, even of Sean Connery’s, but it’s my favorite because for it’s unabashed ridiculousness. Centered around a SPECTRE-led heist of a pair of NATO-owned atomic bombs during a training flight (because they did this in 1965), Thunderball takes 007 to the Bahamas to stop the Italian criminal mastermind Emilio Largo from blowing up … Miami! We get luxuriant yacht lounging on Largo’s vessel, the Disco Volante (literally, “flying saucer”), Claudine Auger as Domino in the second-most iconic Bond girl bikini, and a swimming pool filled with “Golden Grotto” sharks, which Largo calls “the most dangerous, the most savage!” maintained for the sole purpose of novelty assassinations. Also there’s complete facial reconstructive surgery. And an underwater harpoon fight.
Pat Padua: There are a lot I haven’t seen, but I’ll defend The Spy Who Loved Me, if only because I had my picture taken with Richard Kiel, who plays Jaws, pretending to crush my head after a screening.
Valerie Paschall: Goldfinger. One of the best lines from a Bond villain: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” My favorite modern Bond film is Casino Royale, though. It seemed more like a legitimately thrilling film that had actual surprises than the string of clichés that a lot of the Pierce Brosnan films had become.
Andrew Wiseman: Live and Let Die. Bond fights pseudo-blaxploitation bad guys in Harlem, awesome Haitian voodoo priests, and a redneck sheriff in Louisiana. Plus a good song and Yaphet Kotto and Jane Seymour.
