Film opinion: Agent 007 - Who is the best James Bond?
James Bond, Agent 007 with a license to kill has wowed film audiences for generations.
Six actors have taken on the legendary secret agent in the beloved James Bond film franchise, but which one was the best?
Film News Blitz’s David Bason lends his thoughts to the widely debated matter.
6 - George Lazenby (1969)
Then Bond custodians Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made a surprising pick for Sean Connery’s Bond successor: George Lazenby.
The Australian-born actor had only starred in commercials before his sole outing as Bond, which coincidentally comes in one of the franchise’s strongest instalments, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Lazenby lives up to the daunting task of succeeding Connery as Bond well and his place at the foot of this list should be given context.
First, the ranking on this list is tight, as none of the actors did a bad job as Bond and the margins between each star are small.
Second, the filmmakers made the bizarre choice to dub over Lazenby for the third of the film as Bond impersonated another character.
However, despite delivering the iconic and heartbreaking “we have all the time in the world” dialogue in the film’s climax, Lazenby props up this list as he only gave one performance.
The behind-the-scenes drama that led to Lazenby walking away from a seven-picture deal to be Bond is a story for another time, but Lazenby is a case of what might have been.
5 - Pierce Brosnan (1995 - 2002)
Bond had been on a six-year hiatus when Pierce Brosnan made a long-awaited debut as Agent 007 in 1995’s Goldeneye.
Brosnan was due to star as Bond in 1987’s The Living Daylights but a contract dispute between franchise producers and NBC delayed him being handed a licence to kill for nearly a decade.
Brosnan was suave as Bond, combining characteristics of Connery and Roger Moore in equal measure.
However, Brosnan’s tenure was marred by some of the lesser entries in the franchise, particularly his final two outings in The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
Still, for many, Brosnan is a Bond favourite and his warmness to the character to this day is a credit to him.
4 - Roger Moore (1973 - 1985)
For Bond lovers of a generation, ranking Roger Moore fourth in the list of Bond actors is sacrilegious, but remember, the margins on this list are tight!
Moore defined a generation of Bond, churning out seven films across 12 years.
For some, his tongue-in-cheek approach to the character was positive, but as the films wore on and Moore got older, that approach lost its charm.
Starting at the age of 45 after his success in the beloved television series The Saint, Moore was 57 by the time of his final entry, A View to a Kill was released and several accounts from the late, great man himself admit he was too old to still be Bond.
Still, Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me rank as two of the greatest Bond films to date.
3 - Timothy Dalton (1987 - 1989)
Timothy Dalton was a criminally underused Bond.
Before making his bow as James Bond in The Living Daylights, Dalton was approached by producers on several occasions to play the franchise lead.
He was asked to replace Connery following 1967’s You Only Live Twice but declined as he felt a man in his mid-20s was too young to be Bond.
Dalton was approached again for Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and several times throughout Moore’s tenure, before eventually succeeding him.
A lover of the Bond books, Dalton brought his Shakspearean range to a grittier, more grounded Bond, in stark contrast to his predecessor.
With only two films to flex his muscles as Bond, the franchise going through an identity crisis amid a spate of action films dominating the box office left, right and centre, plus a mixed reaction to his take on the character, Dalton goes under the radar.
However, he is often regarded as the closest interpretation of the character in the books and Dalton deserves credit for this.
For me, he feels like a Daniel Craig Bond ahead of his time.
2 - Sean Connery (1962 - 1967, 1971)
Without Connery, there simply is no James Bond.
The Scotsman helped establish the franchise by propping up what would become Hollywood's most enduring cinema series.
A physical presence on screen, with charisma and ferocity, Connery puts his first appearance in Dr No on his shoulders and doesn’t waver.
If Bond was going to endure for as long as it has, Connery had to succeed as Agent 007 and he did so.
Such was Connery’s impact as Bond, that he was called in to replace his successor, Lazenby, for a last hurrah in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, then again in the 1980s franchise offshoot Never Say Never Again.
To this day, Connery is a yardstick that all Bonds live up to and only one has been able to surpass.
1 - Daniel Craig (2006 - 2021)
‘A blond Bond, how can this be?’
Those were the cries when Babara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson cast Daniel Craig as James Bond in 2005.
A relative unknown, Craig convinced Broccoli of his potential, fitting the bill for a 21st-century Bond that would reset the character and the franchise.
“We wanted to do a twenty-first-century Bond and redefine what a classic male hero should be,” says Broccoli in Being Bond, A Daniel Craig Retrospective, written by Mark Salisbury.
“Casino Royale gave us the opportunity to get into Bond’s inner life.
“It tells you why he became the man he became, so we wanted an actor who could be an iconic image of the twenty-first-century man and who had the acting chops to be able to deliver the emotional inner life without a lot of dialogue because Bond is a very internal character.
“It was a very, very tall order, and there were hundreds of people being discussed.”
100s of people became one man and Craig shook Bond to his core, stripped him back and rebuilt him in Casino Royale.
Taking Bond back to his origins was a profound way to launch the character in the 21st century and Craig made the franchise hero more human than he’d ever been.
Craig held the role of Bond longer than anyone, 15 years, through three decades his time in the role saw him grow into a production role.
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After 2008’s Quantum of Solace was negatively impacted by a Hollywood writers’ strike, Craig’s Bond bounced back in 2012’s Skyfall, rightly seen by many as one of the greatest films the franchise has ever produced.
2015’s Spectre followed, reintroducing Bond nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but it would be six years until audiences saw Craig’s Bond for the final time as No Time to Die suffered several COVID-induced delays.
No Time to Die broke the Bond formula, giving the character mortality and setting the stage for Craig to sign off on his tenure as the world-famous secret agent in the most profound of ways.
With Broccoli and Wilson handing over the keys to Amazon, Craig’s Bond marks a significant end point for the character, ready for things to start anew once again.
Who will be Bond number seven and how will they add to this cultural icon’s legacy?
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