Favorite Bond movie and why?

[Jamesfett]

Just for fun. Let's keep it positive. There is enough bad in the world.

I actually love all the Bond films through Brosnan. Even my least favorites are fun to watch.

Even though I am not a fan of the Craig era I do like that there is an ongoing story and the girl he loved so much is not just forgotten in the next film.


1st Goldeneye. I feel it's the perfect Bond film. Goes up against best friend 006. Amazing gadgets, cars, locals, etc. Other than I wish they mentioned he was 006 later in the film as a reminder after the reveal, I think the movie is just perfect.


Very close 2nd The Spy Who Loved Me. Outstanding Bond film. Fun, great locals and gadgets. Submarine car and of course the best Bad Guy Lair ever, Atlantis.



Favorite film by Actor:

Connery-You only Live Twice. Second best Bad Guy lair.

Lazenby-Obviously On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Not a favorite but still fun and the ending still tugs at the heart strings.

Moore-As mentioned The Spy Who Loved Me but I also love Moonraker which gets ripped a lot, but I think was awesome. For Your Eyes Only awesome. I grew up on the Roger Moore films. Dad loves Bond.

Dalton-The Living Daylights. I remember not liking License to Kill and it should have been called License Revoked. I re-watched it recently and it is better than I remember, but The Living Daylights was much better.

Brosnan-As mentioned Goldeneye but I love all four. I actually think Die Another Day is his second best even though that one seems to get ripped the most of his. I loved that they did something different. That he gets captured, is held for a long time, and never escapes but is traded. That was a twist.



Best stuff:

Best Bad Guy Lair - The Spy Who Loved Me, Atlantis as mentioned.

Best Gadget-Moonraker Wrist Dart Gun. Love it.

Best Car- Of course the classic Aston Martin DB5 is #1. The Spy Who Loved Me Submarine car is second. The Living Daylights Aston Martin is a very close third. Awesome gadgets and weapons. Fourth The World is Not Enough remote control BMW. I actually don't care for the car but it had awesome armament and the remote.

Best watch-Seiko G757 in Octopussy.

Best Bond Girl-Again the Spy Who Loved Me. Agent XXX Barbara Bach.

Best Q scene-I think it's the World is not enough. Even though I wish he had been able to be in DAD I felt it was an excellent farewell scene and it showed how much they actually care for each other. I also liked Brosnan's chemistry with Desmond Llewelyn. I always felt like his Bond actually feels bad about the headaches he creates for Q.

Okay this went longer than I meant but I am a little sick so I can't do much right now.

What are your favorites?

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

I'll be the first to get trashed, but I enjoy the Craig films for the same reasons you mentioned.

I'm almost 50, & I grew up watching the Bond movies on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. It was almost an EVENT even a Bond movie was coming on because we knew that was going to be the topic of discussion for the next 2 or 3 days. My pea brain thought that these things were epics, legendarily almost on par with the Star Wars films, but as I've grown older, most haven't held up for me, & unfortunately, most of the spy parody films don't look like much of a parody when I think back on the Bond movies I remember.

I'm hoping this last Craig movie doesn't crap the bed ( although I know that many think that happened when he was cast), so that I can have a complete story for once. Even though, I know there'll be another. There always is.


...& I truly mean no disrespect to the fans of the older movies.i don't mean to disparage anyone else's likes, but just sharing my personal opinion of them.

 

[BTTUK]

First for me is Casino Royale. I loved the simple storyline, with a villain that is not going to be memorable, but I feel that adds to the film as it was more about Bond himself more than anything else. Keeping Judi Dench as M was a brilliant decision too. For me the black and white traitor scenes, interspersed with the first kill scenes made it a big impression on me instantly. The stuntwork from Craig was also impressive.

Best ones per Actor;

Connery- From Russia With Love. The most complete espionage film of the Bond series.

Lazenby- On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's growing on me, but i'm still not sure how I feel about it exactly.

Moore- Man with the Golden Gun. To leave out negativity I'll leave it there with Moore.

Dalton-The Living Daylights also. Really took Bond back to where I enjoyed, as well as bringing in an actor who I felt had more gravitas to him. Wish they'd have made more in this vein with Dalton.

Brosnan- Goldeneye is a given.

Best Car- DB10 in Spectre. I much prefer the new Astons compared to the DB5, which I think is because underneath the looks, the DB5 wasn't that great a car in real life. Having said that the DB5 appearance in Skyfall nearly swayed me to it.

Best watch- Omega Planet Ocean in Casino Royale, followed in joint second by the Rolex Sub on a NATO strap and the new film's Seamaster on milanese strap.

 

[Jamesfett]

I'll be the first to get trashed, but I enjoy the Craig films for the same reasons you mentioned.

I'm almost 50, & I grew up watching the Bond movies on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. It was almost an EVENT even a Bond movie was coming on because we knew that was going to be the topic of discussion for the next 2 or 3 days. My pea brain thought that these things were epics, legendarily almost on par with the Star Wars films, but as I've grown older, most haven't held up for me, & unfortunately, most of the spy parody films don't look like much of a parody when I think back on the Bond movies I remember.

I'm hoping this last Craig movie doesn't crap the bed ( although I know that many think that happened when he was cast), so that I can have a complete story for once. Even though, I know there'll be another. There always is.


...& I truly mean no disrespect to the fans of the older movies.i don't mean to disparage anyone else's likes, but just sharing my personal opinion of them.

I hope you don't get trashed. Fun, no meanies (I have been teaching Kindergarten this year).

 

[Jamesfett]

I'll be the first to get trashed, but I enjoy the Craig films for the same reasons you mentioned.

I'm almost 50, & I grew up watching the Bond movies on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. It was almost an EVENT even a Bond movie was coming on because we knew that was going to be the topic of discussion for the next 2 or 3 days. My pea brain thought that these things were epics, legendarily almost on par with the Star Wars films, but as I've grown older, most haven't held up for me, & unfortunately, most of the spy parody films don't look like much of a parody when I think back on the Bond movies I remember.

I'm hoping this last Craig movie doesn't crap the bed ( although I know that many think that happened when he was cast), so that I can have a complete story for once. Even though, I know there'll be another. There always is.


...& I truly mean no disrespect to the fans of the older movies.i don't mean to disparage anyone else's likes, but just sharing my personal opinion of them.

I am the same age and thought the same. When my son wanted to watch them it was the first time I watched them all in order and I don't know why but for me they stand the test of time and I love them as much today as I did then. I love them for what they were though. Fun popcorn entertainment. As Roger Moore told Jayne Seymour, "Lighten up, it's a Bond film."

I think it's great people love the Craig ones, and obviously they do. They have been huge hits. They are just not for me but it's all good.

 

[ALLEY]

Skyfall is my favorite as it is the closest to resembling my real life.

Well, I mean if you remove the main character being a British spy with a license to kill, and all the other “extraneous details” that make up the overall plot, characters, and the story, it’s exactly what I go through on a typical day.

 

[dbuck]

Connery: From Russia With Love, a proper spy film. Goldfinger right behind in terms of love.

Lazenby: you only get the one, but to be honest it’s one of my favorite Bond movies. It wasn’t when I was younger.

Moore: Spy. For Your Eyes Only is a very close second. And just for kicks, even though it’s not a great film by any means, I do love Live and Let Die.

Dalton: I really liked him as Bond, wish he had more flicks. Living Daylights.

Brosnan: Goldeneye was awesome.

Craig: I wasn’t keen on him but he won me over. Casino Royale, close second Skyfall, a flawed but enjoyable romp.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

Skyfall, because it is both entertaining AND a good film, if that makes sense.

Like, Fast and Furious movies are entertaining, but I wouldn’t call them good. Hotel Rwanda is good, but I wouldn’t call it entertaining.

Skyfall manages to be both, and it’s damn good at being both.

 

[Darth Lars]

Connery: Thunderball. The height of the Connery-era Bond films: Connery at his best. It has got cold war tension, Spectre, undersea battle, and the best Bond girls ever: Fiona and Domino

Moore: The Spy Who Loved Me. The first Bond film I saw as a kid. Also has all the elements that you'd expect of a Bond film.

Dalton: The Living Daylights
Brosnan: Goldeneye
Craig: Casino Royale

Favourite vehicle: Little Nellie from You Only Live Twice


Favourite car / second favourite vehicle: Lotus Esprit car/submarine from The Spy Who Loved Me.

 

[dcarty]

From Russia With Love. It's the film that, for me, remains most true to the source material. Like dbuck points out it's a proper spy film. Bond is at his most human -- he's fallible and he can be hurt. Robert Shaw as Red Grant is every bit the equal of Sean Connery and when the two go at each other in the fight scene they really look like they are tearing each other apart. (And Daniela Bianchi )

Runner up, and "everyone's favorite Bond movie", Goldfinger. From Russia With Love just edges it out as my favorite but all the stars aligned with Goldfinger and the formula for all the Bond movies solidified. Goldfinger was also the last movie they made which made any serious attempt to follow the novel, and I think it is just as faithful as FRWL. (Special shout out to "The Living Daylights" as its pre-credit sequence follow the short story).

I only have one other Bond movie in my video collection and that's Casino Royale with Daniel Craig.

I always enjoyed the Bond movies when I was a kid and after seeing Goldfinger for the umpteenth time while I was in college I decided to read the book and see what it was like and ended up reading all of them, including the short story collections, one after the other. We've all heard the phrase "the book was better than the movie" well, for the most part, I couldn't agree more. Bond is a much more well rounded and interesting character to me than the cartoon he increasingly became in the movies.

As someone pointed out in one of the other Bond related threads the Fleming novels and the early films are very much a product of the post war cold-war era. I know it will never happen but I would love to see a Bond movie done as a period piece (FRWL and Goldfinger practically are at this point, lol).

 

[Strikerkc]

I think best is Golden Eye. It was in this sweet spot of being a straight forward (dare I say, totally plausible scenario for the day and age) scheme, mixed with all above average to great actors in their primes, with special effects being exactly what were needed to convincingly pull off every effect in the film.

I think the Goldfinger is probably the most significant though. It really set the tone that all bond movies would follow; it was the canonization of what was toyed withy in Dr. No, and turned into the template for a whole genre of films, even beyond Bond.

The most "Bond" of them all, was Die Another Day though. It was the culmination of every possible schlocky bit of nonsense you could cram into a Bond movie. It amped the template set down by Goldfinger all the way up to 11 (for better and worse), and then it broke off the knob.
The bad guy was a British aristocrat with a space laser built to save the world, modified to enslave it; who turned out to actually be an ex Korean soviet gene edited to look british. It started with an insertion into north korea with the aid of 2 south korean cyber ninjas, then a hover craft chase through the DMZ; and goes on to have two sword fights, a running super car gun battle through a melting ice palace, wind surfing an ice shelf avalanche over the ocean, and fight with an elctro power armored villian on a crashing jumbo jet.

 

[AJK001]

Thunderball. It was the first Bond movie I ever saw, way back in 1965, and I was hooked. I then had to get all of the original Ian Fleming books and was very disappointed when they started to use just the names without the plots from the books.

 

[el toro]

1. From Russia with love - the most gritty of Connery’s bond films. The standoff and ensuing brawl between Bond and Red Grant is great. Daniela Bianci is also my favorite Bond girl by a country mile. Gorgeous.
2. Thunderball - it’s the most fun bond for me.
3. On her majesty’s secret service - I enjoy Lazenby’s interpretation

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

Dr. No was the first bond film I watched. Loved it immediately. Connery and Andress are fantastic.

The Living Daylights was the first Bond film I saw in the theater opening night. It was a sold out show, atmosphere was incredible. Dalton and D'abo are so much fun to watch.

Skyfall because it's a different take on Bond and is just a great overall movie-exciting, interesting and fun. Love the character exploration.

 

[MattBlack]

I've grown up with the Bond films, to the point where I would watch them whenever they were on TV no matter how far they were into the film. They were just easy watching. When I was younger, Moore was the current Bond, so for a while, he was who I associated with the role the most. However as I got older and watched more of them, I moved further away from Moore.

I'd say that the Moore movies have generally dated the worst over time - effects, acting, tone. Connery's have aged far better and viewed as period pieces work really well. Brosnan's movies are just average bar Goldeneye. It's such a shame his films never kept up the momentum of his debut.

I think the thing I like about the Bond series (and leads to many many arguments on the internet) is that much like Batman, the series has been going on so long, and in so many iterations, everyone has a different favourite era, based around when they grew up, and styles they like. I'm not particularly keen on the Craig films (Craig himself is fine, but the films are too self-conscious now and trying to be contemporary. The Austin Powers/Bourne Identity films really hurt the Bond franchise) but I think Bond will be around forever.

Saying all that though:

Favourite Bond: Dalton. I know he only has two films, but he just felt like such a ruthless *******. Dalton has a great air of irritability in the role, like everything and everyone is just going to slow him down. He has such contempt in his acting. I love it. The Living Daylights also has my favourite sequence in a Bond film ever; the whole 'the sniper is a woman'/smuggling Koskov out of the country' It is so well paced and atmospheric, it's like a short film in itself. I also love the opening pre-credit scene in Gibraltar, it's a great introduction to Dalton.

However, my favourite Bond films are probably; You Only Live Twice and Goldfinger

Favourite Bond scores; You Only Live Twice, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever (John Barry is the GOAT)

Favourite Bond songs: View To A Kill, Nobody Does it Better, From Russia With Love, You Only Live Twice

 

[Michael Bergeron]

I knew Bond before I knew Santa Claus, my dad was and still is a huge fan.

My favourite is a tie between FRWL and Goldfinger. FRWL for being the best spy film of the entire Bond series and GF for creating the template that all subsequent Bond films emulate (cool car, couple gadgets, big set pieces, etc...).

Moore era is a really weak one for me, as is Brosnan. That said, there isn't a single Bond film that I don't enjoy at least something in, and even if certain actor's eras aren't for me I can appreciate what they bring and contribute to the legacy (yes, even Moonraker ).

Favourites by actor:

Connery - FRWL/GF. So hard to choose, and Thunderball is up there too. Hell, even YOLT with all of it's excesses and a Connery clearly half hearting the role is fun. Hard to say anything bad about a ninja army invading a volcano base. lol

Lazenby - Obviously only the one but OHMSS is a fantastic film and like FRWL it's VERY true to the source material.

Moore - Hard to say, but I think probably FYEO. Moore's most badass Bond moment (which he didn't want to do) was kicking that car over the cliff.

Dalton - LTK. This one was WAY ahead of it's time and takes bits and pieces from several of the original novels. "He disagreed with something that ate him" is right out of Live and Let Die. Sadly it was a bit too hardcore for fans at the time but I think it stands up as a fantastic film overall.

Brosnan - Goldeneye, hands down. Love this movie, I remember when it came out in theatres I saw it 7 times. Sadly it's also the only Brosnan film I think is worth watching in it's entirety.

Craig - Skyfall, followed by Casino Royale. Personally I think that when a Craig film hits, it's a home run. I love him as Bond. Quantum was "meh" but Spectre... Maybe I had too high hopes for it but Spectre really disappointed me.

 

[masterjedi322]

Skyfall for me...

Love the story line, Bond hitting rock bottom and having to fight his way back, and his wardrobe. Could have done without the Home Alone-esq scenes at the Bond manor, but otherwise, great flick!

Sean

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

When we were kids my brother and I used to debate over which bond would win in a fight with or without their respective weapons, gadgets and vehicles (this was in the 80's). I would argue for Connery and he would pick Dalton or Moore depending on his mood. It was a lot of fun, this thread reminded me of that.

 

[Skysurfer]

For Your Eyes Only.
I'm a bit of a winter sports fan and I think it's the first one I ever saw.

 

[Probe Droid]

From Russia With Love. Closest to the source material, Connery is in top form, and Shaw is a realistic villain. It's also a solid Cold War spy film. Goldfinger and Thunderball also are great fun, but not as serious.