James Bond Films Guide: Each Film Explained, Dr. No to No Time to Die

The Connery years (1962-1971, six Eon films)

Dr. No, released on October 5, 1962 in the UK, opened the series. Terence Young directed, Connery starred alongside Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman, and the story follows Bond to Jamaica, where the disappearance of a British agent leads him to the base of the title character. Young returned for From Russia with Love in 1963 and Thunderball in 1965.

Goldfinger, in 1964, is the film most people picture when they think of the series. Guy Hamilton directed, Gert Fröbe plays Auric Goldfinger, Honor Blackman plays Pussy Galore, and Harold Sakata plays Oddjob. It features the modified Aston Martin DB5 that Q equips Bond with, and Shirley Bassey sings the title song, which started the tradition of Bond theme songs. John Barry wrote the music.

The remaining Connery entries are You Only Live Twice in 1967, directed by Lewis Gilbert, and Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, directed by Hamilton. Counting Lazenby's film, the series produced seven Eon films in nine years, and that pace built it.

George Lazenby (1969, one film)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service came out in December 1969 between Connery's fifth and sixth films. It was the only Bond film for George Lazenby, who announced during filming that he would play the role just once. Peter R. Hunt directed, in his directorial debut and his only Bond film in that role.

Diana Rigg plays Contessa Tracy di Vicenzo and Telly Savalas plays Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond becomes involved with Tracy after saving her from a suicide attempt, and with a plot by Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE, to threaten the world's food supply. John Barry composed the score. It is the shortest era in the series by a wide margin, and it is worth a watch as a single-film curiosity.

The Moore years (1973-1985, seven films)

Roger Moore played Bond in seven films, the most of any actor in the official series. They are Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985).

Directors changed during the run. Guy Hamilton made the first two, Lewis Gilbert made The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, and John Glen took over for the last three, starting with For Your Eyes Only. Glen also directed both Dalton films, five in total, which makes him the most prolific director in the official series.

Octopussy came out in 1983, the same year as Never Say Never Again, so in one calendar year there were two Bond films with two different actors. That is a useful trivia point and a reminder that the Eon count excludes the second.

Timothy Dalton (1987-1989, two films)

Timothy Dalton made two films, The Living Daylights in 1987 and Licence to Kill in 1989, and John Glen directed both. It is a compact run: two films in two years, followed by a six-year gap.

The gap is what gives Dalton's run its place in the story. Licence to Kill was released in July 1989, and the next Bond film did not arrive until November 1995. A viewer who watches the two Dalton films back to back gets a version of the character that sits apart from both Moore's era before it and Brosnan's after it, and the pair works as a compact double bill.

The Brosnan years (1995-2002, four films)

GoldenEye, released in November 1995, was Pierce Brosnan's first film as Bond and the series' return after six years. Martin Campbell directed. Sean Bean plays Alec Trevelyan, a rogue ex-MI6 agent, Famke Janssen plays Xenia Onatopp, and Judi Dench becomes the first woman to play M. The plot has Bond stopping a stolen satellite weapon from triggering a global financial collapse by striking London.

Three more followed: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997, Roger Spottiswoode), The World Is Not Enough (1999, Michael Apted) and Die Another Day (2002, Lee Tamahori). Four directors in four films gives the run a varied look, and it ends with Die Another Day, after which Eon relaunched the series with a darker, more realistic take.

The Craig years (2006-2021, five films)

Casino Royale, premiered in London on November 14, 2006, began the relaunch. Martin Campbell directed again, Daniel Craig succeeded Brosnan, and the story adapts Ian Fleming's 1953 novel of the same name. Bond tries to bankrupt Le Chiffre, a banker who finances terrorism, in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro. Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen and Judi Dench head the cast. Dench's M is a thread across both eras, since she first played the role in GoldenEye in 1995 and appears again in Casino Royale and Skyfall. She is the most visible link between the Brosnan and Craig runs.

Quantum of Solace followed in 2008, directed by Marc Forster, and picks up shortly after Casino Royale. Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015) were both directed by Sam Mendes. In Skyfall, Javier Bardem plays Raoul Silva, a former agent who attacked MI6 and is targeting M; Adele and Paul Epworth wrote the title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the first Bond theme to do so.

No Time to Die, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, was Craig's fifth and final Bond film. Release was delayed by COVID-19, and it reached the UK in September 2021. Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas star. The plot opens with a retired Bond recruited by the CIA to extract a kidnapped scientist carrying deadly nanobots. It closes the Craig story, and this guide leaves the ending alone.

The two films outside Eon

Casino Royale (1967) is a comedy built around David Niven as Bond, directed by Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest and Richard Talmadge. It shares its title with the 2006 film and is unrelated to the Eon series.

Never Say Never Again (1983) brought Connery back for one film outside the series, with Irvin Kershner directing. Neither film belongs to the official count, and a first-time viewer can ignore both without missing any of the series' continuity.