From Dr No to Spectre: ranking the James Bond movies from worst to best - 1st October 2021

James Bond over the years. Clockwise from top left: Daniel Craig, George Lazenby, Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore.

By Garry Maddox

To rank the James Bond movies, the key question is how much you view them through modern eyes.

We wince now when Sean Connery slaps a woman, rips off a bikini top or holds her down until he can kiss her but audiences seemed to find this unremarkable behaviour for a British secret agent in the 1960s. The series recognised how much times had changed when Judi Dench’s M called 007 a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” in 1995’s GoldenEye.

For almost six decades of “official” Bond movies, the formula has proven enduringly popular: action-packed spy adventures in exotic locations, spectacular stunts, glamorous women who usually fall into bed with 007, gadgets, explosions, fast cars and witty asides. But it has been reinvented repeatedly as Connery gave way to George Lazenby then Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

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(The Sydney Morning Herald)