Bond 50 Poll: Worst James Bond Movies

Yesterday, we asked you to identify your favorite James Bond movies. Unfortunately, we’d be remiss if we failed to acknowledge that the 007 franchise has had its share of duds over the years as well. For today’s poll, let’s find out which James Bond films are your least favorite.

I have no doubt that ‘Moonraker‘ will lead the voting here. I can’t argue with that too much. It’s a pretty dumb movie, and certainly one of the weakest of the series. However, if you could try to divorce it from the James Bond franchise and just look at it as a thick slice of ’70s sci-fi cheese, it’s kind of enjoyably dopey. I’ll be honest, I look forward to watching that one again more than the wretched ‘A View to a Kill’ or ‘Die Another Day‘.

Roger Moore takes a lot of heat for dumbing down the Bond series. Even the best of his movies suffer their share of goofiness that hasn’t aged well. However, not even the legendary Sean Connery was immune to this problem. Both ‘You Only Live Twice’ and ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ are pretty big stinkers, and his return to the role in the “unofficial” 1983 remake of ‘Thunderball’, jokingly called ‘Never Say Never Again‘, is just plain awful.

Vote for as many options in this poll as you’d like.

Don’t forget to get your preorder in for the ‘Bond 50’ collection. When you order from Amazon, you’ll also get an exclusive hardcover book about James Bond movie posters.

Which Are Your Least Favorite James Bond Films?

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16 comments

  1. I’m still reeling from the concept that the abysmal ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ is somehow better than ‘GoldenEye,’ which really saved the franchise after ‘License to Kill’ and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    • Barsoom Bob

      I agree that “Goldeneye” is a better film, but “Tomorrow Never Dies” is not without it’s charms, most notably Michele Yeoh’s contributions. I agree that the villian and the ending were pretty lame.

      I was tempted to answer this poll with, “Anything with Roger Moore in it” but that would be too snarkie even if it is true. That is actually pretty funny because before he became Bond he was terrific as Simon “the Saint” Templar in a weekly British TV series that was broadcast every Sunday night here in the states. When it was announced that he was taking over the role, I was happy, thought that it bode well for the series. That evaporated into disdain with the very first fight in “Live and Let Die” when they had to obviously speed up the film to make the fight look kinetic. He just didn’t bring the danger or the sexy, and then the stories themselves just started to get ridiculous.

      • ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ is very much a two-faced film, half great parts and half awful. The pre-credits sequence is both lousy and disposable, but the Teri Hatcher segment is great and so on. For me, the stealth boat, the pair of villains, and their real time newspaper headlines fatally detract from all the good aspects. (should have kept Jonathon Pryce down to a ‘Ronin’ level of screen time)

        Having seen all the bond movies many times I know that none made in the last fifteen years are even close to the worst. ‘Never Say Never Again’ is like ‘Get Smart’ meets ‘Cocoon.’ And the second most un-watchable movie in this pole has to be ‘License to Kill.’ The ‘Living Daylights’ nailed just the right tone for Dalton, but someone decided that a deliberate shark attack on Felix Leiter should send Bond into a brooding joyless vendetta.

        Roger Moore will always have ‘A Spy Who Loved Me.”

          • Jessica

            I like all of the James Bond movies that I’ve seen, but Tomorrow Never Dies is great maybe not as great as Goldeneye, but it’s not abysmal.

  2. Barsoom Bob

    HELP !

    Can anybody explain where the Bond films that haven’t been available before, that are now exclusives, can be found? There are a few of those titles I want to add to my collection.

  3. Tim H

    Die Another Day and TWINE. I loved Pierce and all of the Bond films for that matter, but those 2 were duds for me!

  4. Dan Jones

    A View to a Kill…absolutly awful! Octopussy was bad and also, theman with a golden gun was barley tolerable. The World is not Enough, not so good either, and Die Another Day was bad too.

  5. I voted Die Another Day and World is Not Enough. Can’t believe View to a Kill and Moonraker are getting more votes than the awful World is Not Enough!! 😉

  6. Alex

    I’m constant astounded at the amount of hate levied towards Die Another Day. Is it the best Bond movie? No. But danged if it isn’t a fun movie. With the exception of Craig and the endlessly dour Dalton, the Bond movies have always been somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Thunderball has a rocket-pack. Spy Who Loved Me has a floating sea-fortress. Goldeneye has Alan Cumming. They all have their goofy moments. That hyperized reality, and the fact that they’ve adapted to the contemporary action movie trends is what’s made them fun and what’s allowed them to last longer and with more success than any other franchise.

    I like Die Another Day. I like the fact that they tried to work in an homage to each of the previous 19 Bond films. I like the invisible car. I even tolerate Halle Berry. And I’m proud of it.

  7. The World is Not Enough is actually watchable, people just hate it because the villain’s unusual background is a tad hokey and they don’t care for the Bond girl. I don’t like that actress either but she was hardly in enough scenes to wreck it for me.

    Overall, two of Moore’s films (Moonraker & Man with the Golden Gun) and Brosnon’s last outing (Die Another Day) are despicable films as well as the unofficial Never Say Never Again/Thunderball remake.

    Other than that, I’d say the franchise has been endlessly enjoyable.

  8. Simon Coles

    All Pierce Broanan film apart from Die Another Day are very good. Tomorrow Never Dies is perhaps more in Bond’s middle tier but it is still petty good. I’d never argue that Did Another Day and Moonraker are anything but crap however. Never understood all the You Only Live Twice hate.

  9. Jak Donark

    I think I like Moonraker so much because it was one of the first Bond movies I saw as a kid, and the whole space thing I was into then (Star Wars, Star Trek). Even now, although I admit it’s one of the weakest entries, it still has a lot going for it. It has one of the best scores, it has great locations (including outer space!), a decent fight between Bond and Chang, one of (if not the best) Q line: “I believe he’s attempting re-entry!” And one of my favorite Bond moments: Goodhead is looking for the light switch in her hotel room. Bond grabs her hand and yells, “Bah!” She’s startled, then they cut back to him and he’s standing there calmly. No smirk, as though he hadn’t just done that for fun. I honestly can watch this movie over and over.

    As far as the worst, I’m split between TWINE and DAD. When I saw TWINE in the theater I was so confused because all the publicity said that Elektra was the main Bond girl, and Dr Jones was just there as the side girl. I understand they did that to avoid potential spoilers, but it totally changed what I expected the movie to be, and was ultimately very disappointed. And don’t forget about the too long precredits sequence. It’s not bad, but they packed too much into what’s supposed to be a few minute teaser. When DAD came out I enjoyed all the throwbacks to previous bonds, the ice chase was fun and fantastic, but after watching them both again a few times, TWINE isn’t as bad as the first time I saw it, and DAD is a little worse.

    Oh yeah and I’ll agree with the above comment about Licence to Kill. Living Daylights is one of my favorites, but LTK totally changed the tone. It was fashioned to bring Bond to a more American style of action (they even had actors who had been in Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, and even had a score by Michael Kamen!) If memory serves it’s also the only Bond film to take place entirely in North America. Again separating it from it’s European roots. As a straight action movie, it’s not too bad, but as a Bond movie, I’ll put it near the bottom of the list.