Dec. 12: Shteevie ranks the James Bond films

This is the definitive ranking of all 25 of EON Productions' James Bond films. I am the world's foremost authority on James Bond movies. If you disagree with anything on this list, then you are wrong.

25. Diamonds are Forever. 1971. What a mess of a movie this is. Terrible continuity, a story that makes no sense, nonsensical developments, Blofeld showing up in drag for no reason at all, and a 40-year-old Sean Connery, somehow looking like he's in his late 50s, sleepwalking his way through the flick. Even bringing Shirley Bassey back to sing the title song can't save this turkey. Sure, Jill St. John gets some credit for being the first American Bond girl, but the whole thing stinks.

24. The Man With the Golden Gun. 1974. The book is so so so much better than the movie. In the book, the stakes are super high. In the book, Bond is brainwashed by the enemy and returns to London to assassinate M. He fails in his quest and, instead of being handed a court martial, is sent on a suicide assignment, to track down the world's deadliest assassin, Francisco Scaramanga, aka the man with the golden gun. Unfortunately, the movie is just a bunch of campy nonsense that is more interested in paying homage to the (then) trendy kung fu movie craze than making us care about what happens to 007. Scaramanga had the potential to be the greatest villain in the series, but he's washed away by awful acting by some of the supporting players and a stupid science fiction subplot about solar energy. The movie also contains the most uncomfortable scene in the entire canon - Bond breaks into a hotel room where a woman is showering, surprises her, threatens to break her arm if she doesn't give him some information, threatens her life, and then has the audacity to drink a toast with her.

23. Moonraker. 1979. James Bond in space. Yes, I understand that Star Wars was all the rage back then, but what makes Bond so great is he's firmly grounded in the real world. In Moonraker, he literally goes out of this world. Drax makes a fine villain and his death scene is pretty cool, but the whole thing is too gimmicky to qualify as one of the better Bonds.

22. A View to a Kill. 1985. The whole plot is lifted from Goldfinger and Roger Moore is pushing 60. Kind of pathetic when the world's most famous secret agent is old enough to be a great-grandfather. 

21. For Your Eyes Only. 1981. No idea why Blofeld makes a cameo appearance at the beginning of this movie or why he would offer 007 a stainless steel delicatessen in exchange for not dropping him down the smokestack. Sheena Easton's title song is one of the best in the series and the footage from Greece is gorgeous, but the villain isn't very interesting and the fact that Bond doesn't kill him in the end seems out of character.

20. You Only Live Twice. 1967. Bond in yellowface to disguise himself as a Japanese fisherman. That wouldn't go over well today. The best thing about this movie is we finally get to see what Blofeld looks like. 

19. Quantum of Solace. 2008. Most Bond fans rank this as the worst of the Craig Bonds, and deservedly so. The kinetic editing makes it hard to follow the action, its villain is weak and ill defined, and Strawberry Fields seems thrown in just so 007 can have at least one conquest,

18. The World is Not Enough. 1999. I rank this as the worst of the Brosnan Bonds because Christmas Jones is not a believable Bond girl and the closing line makes me groan, and not in a good way. 

17. Tomorrow Never Dies. 1997. Just wall-to-wall action. My favourite thing about this movie is Carver's death scene.

16. Live and Let Die. 1973. Roger Moore's debut as 007. I always liked this movie because of the voodoo angle - and it may be the closest any Bond movie has come to having a supernatural element - plus a pretty snazzy title song. 

15. The Spy Who Loved Me. 1975. Bond fans tend to describe this as the best of the Moore offerings. It's easy to see why. The script is tailored for Moore's lighthearted quips and his playboy persona gives the whole movie a campy soft porn feel. But the plot seemed lifted from You Only Live Twice. Jaws was great as was Mrs. Ringo Starr.

14. Thunderball. 1965. Some critics say this is when the Bond movies started to get too gimmicky, the story relied more on gadgets than having Bond use his wits to get out of trouble. The story has one too many unbelievable coincidences for me and the scene where Bond nearly blackmails a nurse into sleeping with him is so not cool.

13. Die Another Day. 2002. I am in the minority of Bond fans, many of whom rank this movie dead last. It came out the year the cinematic Bond celebrated his 40th anniversary so the filmmakers tries to cram references to all 19 of the preceding movies into this one. Some thought the CGI windsurfing scene was a departure and that the invisible car was just plain stupid. But I like this movie because it has some of the best villain death scenes in the entire series. Impaled by a falling chandelier, stabbed in the heart, sucked into a jet engine. That's just kewl.

12. No Time to Die. 2021. AKA the one where Bond dies. No. Bad.

11. Spectre. 2015. I don't know why Bond would take the ring off the bad guy's finger while they're fighting for control of a helicopter. If someone was trying to kill me, the last thing I'd care about is stealing their jewelry. That inconsistency stayed with me for the entire duration of the movie. Even so, I rank this movie higher than a lot of Bond fans because Dave Bautista's Hinx is a menacing henchman who looks like he's really trying to kill Bond, not just play acting.

10. The Living Daylights. 1987. I am a big fan of Timothy Dalton and I really appreciate how he tried to play Bond as the brooding unsure of himself secret agent that Ian Fleming wrote about. It's too bad that moviegoers never warmed up to him. The Living Daylights benefits from a believable straightforward plot, a couple twists, and a nice looking Bond girl who's great with a cello.

9. Octopussy. 1982. This is my favourite of the Moore Bond movies, maybe because it's the first Bond movie I ever saw. The backgammon scene between Bond and the villain, Kamal Khan, is so well acted - maybe one of the best single scenes from the entire series. Gobinda is a great henchman and the two Bond girls, played by Kristina Wayborn and Maud Adams, are both lovely. It's a tragedy that Octopussy couldn't be Roger Moore's swan song.

8. From Russia with Love. 1964. The fight on the train between Bond and Red Grant is one of the best fight scenes in all of cinema. I'm actually not sure why I rank it so low but it's too late to stop now.

7. Licence to Kill. 1989. Bond goes rogue, or so they said when this movie came out, even though it wasn't the first time he did that (more on that later.) The script was written for Timothy Dalton's icy no nonsense Bond, who remains focused on extracting revenge on the film's villain, Franz Sanchez, for maiming Bond's best friend, Felix Leiter, and killing his bride on their wedding night. Sanchez's death scene is one of the best in the series. I wish Dalton made seven more movies. He was great.

6. Skyfall. 2012. This movie was so inspired by the novel, The Man With the Golden Gun. Here we have a wounded and left for dead Bond who suddenly reappears because he misses the only thing that gave his life meaning, being on her majesty's secret service. We have the external plot that comes with all Bond movies - Bond setting out to take down a bad guy - but there's also an internal plot where Bond suspects he's only a shell of the man he used to be and needs to change that.

5. Goldfinger. 1964. I know I know... most Bond films rank this as the best. It's always at least in the top three. Hard to disagree too. Super strong villain, iconic car, Pussy Galore, "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" and an ingenious plot that's better than what Fleming had in the novel. But I'm allowed to be me and there are four movies that I liked more.

4. Casino Royale. 2006. I was ecstatic to learn that EON Productions finally won the right to adapt Ian Fleming's first ever Bond novel, Casino Royale. Because I was so familiar with the story, there weren't a whole lot of surprises for me, though it was a great move to make the game hold 'em poker rather than the baccarat tournament described in the book. Daniel Craig is a tough and bleeding Bond who, like Timothy Dalton, comes very close to emulating the wounded agent Fleming wrote about.

3. Dr. No. 1962. The first ever Bond movie and my favourite one with Sean Connery. The producers had a limited budget so couldn't go crazy on special effects; they had to rely on story instead. And what a great story it is. Bond goes to Jamaica to find out who killed Strangways and his secretary. He follows the clues and, through a believable sequence, figures out where the titular bad guy is and what he's trying to do. Behind all the womanizing and all the tough guy bravado, Bond is, first and foremost, a fantastic detective. Dr. No shows this better than any other Bond movie.

2. Goldeneye. 1995. "It's what keeps me alive." "No, it's what keeps you alone." Nuff said.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. 1969. Not just my favourite Bond movie, it's also my favourite movie. Sean Connery couldn't have pulled this off. The one-and-done George Lazenby had Bond going rogue for the first time ever, tracking down his arch-enemy Blofeld even after his superiors pulled him off the case. When he escapes from Piz Gloria on New Year's Eve and tries skiing down the Alps, we're actually afraid Bond might not make it. In this movie, we see Bond as alone as he's ever been in the series. Throughout the course of the film, he'll make a deal with a gangster, get married, and chase Blofeld on skis and, ultimately, a bobsled until one of them gets carried away (literally.) The ending is one of the most tragic and powerful in all of cinema. I watch this movie every December and I always pray that Tracy survives but, of course, she never does.