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What is the best James Bond movie of all time?

10 November 2026 · Movies

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James Bond has been on cinema screens since 1962, and the argument over which film is the best is almost as old. Every fan has an answer, and it usually says as much about the fan as about the films: the Bond you grew up with tends to be your Bond. The question is open again because the series is between actors. Amazon MGM Studios took creative control of the franchise in 2025, and Denis Villeneuve was announced as the director of the next film. So before a new era begins, here is how the world ranks the old ones. On GOATvs every official Eon film is on the movies list, and the order comes from people picking one film over another, two at a time. The box above shows where the leaders stand right now and how three classic match-ups split.

The headline is that the modern era leads. Casino Royale (2006) sits at the top of the Bond films. It was Daniel Craig's first outing and a reboot in everything but name: Bond earns his licence to kill in the opening scene, loses at poker, falls in love with Vesper Lynd and ends the film colder than he began it. Martin Campbell directed it, eleven years after he had relaunched the series once before with GoldenEye. Right behind it is Skyfall (2012), Sam Mendes's film about M's past coming back to find her. It was the first Bond film to pass a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, and Adele's theme song won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

The Craig years go on to fill most of the top of the Bond list. No Time to Die (2021), his last film, gave the series an ending no Bond had had before, and Billie Eilish's theme also won the Oscar. Spectre and Quantum of Solace are more divisive, but both still sit above much of the older catalogue.

Then come the films that made Bond a legend. Goldfinger (1964), Sean Connery's third film, is the one that set the formula: the gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5, the outsized villain with a plan to match, Shirley Bassey's brassy theme and a henchman called Oddjob with a lethal hat. For many critics, though, the purest Connery film is the one before it, From Russia with Love (1963), a Cold War thriller with a fight on the Orient Express that is still one of the best in the series. The box above shows which one the world prefers.

Pierce Brosnan's best is GoldenEye (1995), the film that brought Bond back after a six-year gap and gave a whole generation its first Bond, partly through the Nintendo 64 game of the same name. Put it against Casino Royale, the other Martin Campbell debut, and you get a real test of how much nostalgia counts.

Some films are better loved by fans than by the wider public. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), George Lazenby's only appearance, has one of the most moving endings in the series and a strong cult following. Roger Moore's finest hour is usually said to be The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), with its Union Jack parachute jump and the steel-toothed Jaws. Timothy Dalton's two films from 1987 and 1989 were darker than their time and look closer to Craig's Bond today than to the films around them.

So what is the best James Bond movie of all time? Right now the world says Casino Royale, but these places move as people vote, and the gap between the very top films is small. The full order of all the official films is on our best James Bond movies page, and the action and adventure list puts Bond next to Indiana Jones, Mad Max and the rest of the genre. Pick your side in the match-ups above and help decide which Bond lasts.

Vote: Skyfall vs Casino Royale

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