Hello! Here are my Bond film ratings. They are grouped together by actor and not year of release (i.e. see Sean Connery). I gave a score out five and a little review of the film.
Some of them are short, some of them are long. Some of them were done long after watching the movie so there wasn’t a lot to say about them.
Enjoy!
Official Sean Connery - 6
Dr. No (1962) Liked 4/5 Nice start to the series. Although it’s not the first book it makes sense for everyone.
From Russia With Love (1963) Liked 4/5 Good sequel. Continues the SPECTRE plot from the first film.
Goldfinger (1964) Liked 4/5 Classic. Found the end to be a little cheesy though.
Thunderball (1965) Liked 4/5 Found it very intriguing, although I thought the beginning was a little confusing at first.
You Only Live Twice (1967) Liked 4/5 This might be my favorite from the official Connery era. I just love seeing his Bond go up against Blofeld.
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Disliked 2/5 I’m not really sure what exactly I didn’t like about this movie. Maybe it was because it felt like there was nothing happening in this imo. Bond goes to Vegas... now what?
George Lazenby - 1
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) Loved 5/5 Very close adaptation. George Lazenby is one of my top 3 Bonds
Roger Moore - 7
Live And Let Die (1973) Loved 5/5 First Moore film and great start to era.
The Man With The Golden Gun (1975) Meh 3/5 Found it be just like the 70s: cheesy. I did like the ending though.
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Liked 4/5 What a dynamic duo James and Anya make. Plus Jaws, who’s probably my favorite henchman. I do hope he makes a return...
Moonraker (1979) 3.5/5 Okay I liked this movie for the most part but the end just really bothered me and I don’t know why... I did like hearing Richard Kiel speak though.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) 3.5/5 Okay I thought this one was just ok. Nothing special. Found Bibi annoying as hell, which I get is the point but she was just too much to take.
Octopussy (1983) 3/5 Meh There were too many characters too keep track of, too many things going on at once.
A View To A Kill (1985) 2/5 Disliked I found this one to be boring. There wasn’t much going on in this movie, especially in the first forty-five minutes or so. Bond goes to a horse race and goes undercover to find out why Zorin is using microchips. Okay.
Timothy Dalton - 2
The Living Daylights (1987) Liked 4/5 Good start to a more serious Bond. Also Dalton looks just like how Bond is described in the books. Didn’t really like the cello chase scene though.
License To Kill (1989) Liked 4/5 I really like that this is the first rogue Bond film. I enjoyed the plot very much, how it centered on the revenge of his friend and his wife and not just on a girl.
Pierce Brosnan - 4
Golden Eye (1995) 5/5 Loved Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as Bond is one for the ages. I liked Sean Bean as the villain and the plot twist was great. Brosnan is Bond in looks and in charisma. Opening theme is now one of my favorites.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) 4/5 Liked For all I’ve heard about how terrible Pierce’s movies get after Goldeneye, I actually think TND wasn’t that bad. I liked it. I found the plot to be a little cliché but it was well-executed. Johnathan Pryce has always been one of my favorite actors to play a villain since I saw him as the High Sparrow in GoT. I laughed at some parts during this film and Michelle Yeoh was great as the Bond girl. I loved the end when she threw a ninja star into some guys neck.
The World Is Not Enough (1999) 3/5 Meh The movie started off great, leading me to wonder if perhaps this was going to take a darker tone, but I was wrong. It was a little campy in some spots but I didn’t mind. What bothered me was that Renard, in my opinion, seemed very under-used. I also knew Elektra was a baddie as soon as M mentioned that she told Robert King to not pay the ransom. You can’t do that and not expect someone to be angry at you.
Die Another Day (2002*) *40th Anniversary 2/5 Disliked I’ve heard a lot about this movie. I’ve heard that it is considered the worst James Bond entry in the franchise. I’ve heard it’s only okay. Well, here’s what I think of it: I thought it started out great! In fact I was actually enjoying it. I like how it started out with a darker tone, with Bond getting captured and tortured by the North Koreans and then being delivered to MI6. I liked the Cuba sequence even though it was a little bit weird with the guy still being alive despite having diamonds embedded in his face. I liked our first introduction to Jinx. Then it all went downhill from the fencing scene onwards. It did not feel like a James Bond film — it felt like a campy spy flick that comes out every few years. Yes, JB has been known for being notoriously campy during its earlier movies, especially during the Roger Moore run, but it wasn’t stupidly campy like this was: all the puns, the CGI tsunami, and the slow motion! Who directed this, Zack Snyder? It felt like the slow motion effect was used too much in this movie. I can forgive it maybe once or twice but this was just too much. I know it’s such a small thing but it still bothered me.
Daniel Craig - 5
Casino Royale (2006) 5/5 Loved Great entry to a fantastic Bond. Got rid of all the gadgets and cgi and took it right back to its core: a man on a mission. The soundtrack was simply stunning; a story told within a story. I’m simply blown away by everything. I can’t believe that this is from the same writers as DAD! Plus Eva Green... ❤️
Quantum of Solace (2008) 4/5 Liked You know for all the crap this movie gets I didn’t think it was that bad. Best watched right after Casino Royale. Works as a direct sequel, and is Bond’s quest for solace in a broken world. And again, David Arnold’s score was superb.
Skyfall (2012*) *50th Anniversary 5/5 Loved Great little references to the older films. The cinematography was just breathtaking. Wonderful casting. I especially loved Ralph Fiennes as Mallory and loved seeing Moneypenny introduced into Craig’s era of Bond. Although the score wasn’t as good as David Arnold’s, I still enjoyed it very much. The pre-title sequence was intense, and the title sequence itself was spectacular. Adele did a great job! Also that little ‘James Bond Will Return’ at the end was fun!
SPECTRE (2015) 4/5 Liked I’ll be completely honest: I did not like this movie when I first watched it. I found it to be boring and and stupid in some parts. However now that I’m done with my complete watch of the 007 series, I must say that I have judged this movie wrong. There are faults, yes, ones that I will talk about, but this movie was actually pretty good on my second rewatch. Let’s get the good out of the way first: the cinematography. Again, like Skyfall, this movie was visually stunning. The skyline shots of London and Tangier were just gorgeous. The score: I found the score to be much better this time around. Though I still prefer David Arnold over Thomas Newman, I must say that he stepped it up this time. It sounded glassy to me — which I know is a weird way of describing a score but it did to me. It sounded glassy in a good way. It sounded delicate and classy. Madeleine’s theme was my favorite! The direction: Sam Mendes does it again! Just a genius in his craft and I love what he’s done with James Bond! Now for the bad. James and Madeleine’s relationship: I know what writers were going for — A second Vesper, someone who makes Bond realize that there’s more to life than just killing. However it felt very rushed to me compared to Vesper and Bond’s relationship in Casino Royale. One minute she was telling him to get away and the next moment she’s kissing and having sex with him. I think it could’ve been better. The brother relationship between Blofeld and Bond: it was ripped straight out of Austin Powers and that was very disappointing. I expected more from the writers of Skyfall. Also the whole “author of your pain” and “cuckoo” made me roll my eyes. Monica Belluci: before this movie hit theaters it was said that Monica would be in this film as a Bond girl. I remember everyone was very excited, everyone said that she would be the best Bond girl ever. She was barely in the movie for twenty minutes, maybe fifteen tops, and she was only there to have sex with Bond and give him information. What wasted potential...
All in all, I enjoyed my watch of James Bond. I can’t wait for Bond 25 and my hope is that it’s good. I have faith in Cary. I’m also eagerly awaiting the new James Bond actor to be picked.
Now all I have to do is finish the books!

For a lot of films, the opening credits are the first chance to make a good first impression in addition to setting the tone for the rest of the runtime. Ignoring ones that don't have any kind of opening credits, if a film uses standard text played over generic score or pop music over top an otherwise standard first scene, it gives the impression that this will be a pretty standard narrative that doesn't take a lot of risks or attempt to do something different (this is not a hard and fast rule, just an issue of perception). But if an opening can find a way to hook the audience with unique visuals and clever use of music while conveying the overall themes and tone of a film, it sets up a potentially fantastic experience. Think the openings to nearly every James Bond film, where the visuals give an indication of the basic plot while the music passes on how that plot will attempt to make the audience feel. With all that being said, what are some of your favorite opening credits in film? Why do they stick out to you? Personally, some of the ones that have stuck out to me base on recent watches are Superbad, Hardcore Henry, John Wick: Chapter 3, Lord of War and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.
Edit: Gonna link the scenes referenced by me and other people for context.
Superbad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cMERD5S40
Hardcore Henry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBFMosWDUo
John Wick: Chapter 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAhfpo61j1s
Lord of War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHn1zogeyO4
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B67TuUwghqE
Watchmen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24D87SqaLQ
Deadpool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MjyGL0go60
Fight Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3JqaMWbOOU
Jackie Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0MsKEd6fkk
Casino Royale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlqDf6jOwCk
Superman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk1aQx9hTaE
Psycho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tek8QmKRODw
Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCt1V8T3To
The Hateful Eight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxtNi3dytcY
Beetlejuice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQXkrFoq3Kg
Zombieland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AFnThY472c
Se7en: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
Vertigo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvaahmgmz8w
North By Northwest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBxjwurp_04
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1A7bJD3atk
Age of Innocence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MZDtoIZZWE
3000 Miles to Graceland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5DP-RC1NFg
Guardians of the Galaxy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNlnQwHWSYw
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVLJkIZvFlo
The Naked Kiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BPBius5T2E
Barbarella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnS5LYvaYhc
Experiment in Terror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ry5ZWlUb8s
Blood and Black Lace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCBbanydLLo
Panic Room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIclb4qsJI
Baby Driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYv2a_VF328
Mission: Impossible - Fallout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQHONHGaWjo
Lost in Translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYHYG2ZZzf8
Bad Boys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PCodGMhoMk
Swingers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M81vw1a4T8
Enter the Void: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL0lNGXoP8E&feature=youtu.be&t=67

The following gives you an overview of relevant movies. There are 138 categories. You can use this as a challenge: make sure that you have watched at least one film from each category.
(1) 80s action First Blood (1982) Conan the Barbarian (1982) The Terminator (1984) Commando (1985) Top Gun (1986) Predator (1987) RoboCop (1987) Die Hard (1988) Bloodsport (1988) The Killer (1989)
(2) Black comedy Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Withnail & I (1987) Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) Man Bites Dog (1992) Happiness (1998) Snatch (2000) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) In Bruges (2008) Wild Tales (2014) Ingrid Goes West (2017)
(3) Coen brothers Blood Simple. (1984) Raising Arizona (1987) Miller's Crossing (1990) Barton Fink (1991) Fargo (1996) The Big Lebowski (1998) O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) A Serious Man (2009) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
(4) Film noir The Maltese Falcon (1941) Double Indemnity (1944) Laura (1944) Mildred Pierce (1945) The Lost Weekend (1945) The Big Sleep (1946) Out of the Past (1947) They Live by Night (1948) The Third Man (1949) In a Lonely Place (1950) Night and the City (1950) Ace in the Hole (1951) Rififi (1955) Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
(5) French New Wave The 400 Blows (1959) Breathless (1960) A Woman Is a Woman (1961) Léon Morin, Priest (1961) Jules and Jim (1962) Vivre Sa Vie (1962) Contempt (1963) Band of Outsiders (1964) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Pierrot le Fou (1965) Two or Three Things I Know About Her... (1967) Weekend (1967) My Night at Maud's (1969)
(6) Left Bank Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) Last Year at Marienbad (1961) La Jetée (1962) Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) Le Bonheur (1965)
(7) Richard Linklater Dazed and Confused (1993) Before Sunrise (1995) Waking Life (2001) Before Sunset (2004) A Scanner Darkly (2006) Before Midnight (2013)
(8) Serial killer Henry (1986) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Se7en (1995) Zodiac (2007)
(9) Screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934) The Awful Truth (1937) Bringing Up Baby (1938) His Girl Friday (1940) The Philadelphia Story (1940) The Lady Eve (1941)
(10) Vigilante films Dirty Harry (1971) Straw Dogs (1971) Death Wish (1974) Falling Down (1993) Walking Tall (2004) John Wick (2014)
(11) Terrence Malick Badlands (1973) Days of Heaven (1978) The Thin Red Line (1998) The New World (2005) The Tree of Life (2011) Knight of Cups (2015)
(12) Drugs Trainspotting (1996) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) Requiem for a Dream (2000) Traffic (2000) Blow (2001) Maria Full of Grace (2004)
(13) Buster Keaton Sherlock Jr. (1924) The General (1926) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) The Cameraman (1928) Our Hospitality (1928)
(14) Disaster Airport (1970) Apollo 13 (1995) Twister (1996) Deep Impact (1998) The Day After Tomorrow (2004) Deepwater Horizon (2016)
(15) Neo-noir Point Blank (1967) Chinatown (1974) Thief (1981) L.A. Confidential (1997) Sin City (2005) Drive (2011) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
(16) Cars & Racing Vanishing Point (1971) Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) Death Race 2000 (1975) Rush (2013) The Fast and the Furious (2001) Days of Thunder (1990) Speed Racer (2008)
(17) 1920s Greed (1924) Battleship Potemkin (1925) Metropolis (1927) Sunrise (1927) Napoleon (1927) The Crowd (1928)
(18) Adventure The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Deliverance (1972) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) Master and Commander (2003) Apocalypto (2006) Life of Pi (2012) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
(19) Genius Rain Man (1988) Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) Good Will Hunting (1997) A Beautiful Mind (2001)
(20) South Korea Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) Oldboy (2003) 3-Iron (2004) Mother (2009) I Saw the Devil (2010)
(21) Ingmar Bergman The Seventh Seal (1957) Wild Strawberries (1957) Through a Glass Darkly (1961) Winter Light (1963) Persona (1966) Cries & Whispers (1972) Scenes from a Marriage (1973) Autumn Sonata (1978) Fanny and Alexander (1982)
(22) Billy Wilder Sunset Boulevard (1950) Some Like It Hot (1959) The Apartment (1960) One, Two, Three (1961) Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
(23) Comedy-drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Being There (1979) My Dinner with Andre (1981) The Breakfast Club (1985) The Fisher King (1991) Groundhog Day (1993) Forrest Gump (1994) Buffalo '66 (1998) The Truman Show (1998) The Man Without a Past (2002) Lost in Translation (2003) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Frances Ha (2012) Toni Erdmann (2016)
(24) Drama Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Gone with the Wind (1939) The Grapes of Wrath (1940) All About Eve (1950) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) From Here to Eternity (1953) On the Waterfront (1954) Splendor in the Grass (1961) Midnight Cowboy (1969) À Nos Amours (1983) Vagabond (1985) The Piano (1993) La Haine (1995) Secrets & Lies (1996) The Ice Storm (1997) The Celebration (1998) All About My Mother (1999) Ratcatcher (1999) Amores Perros (2000) La Ciénaga (2001) Morvern Callar (2002) 25th Hour (2002) Elephant (2003) Mysterious Skin (2004) Babel (2006) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) Wendy and Lucy (2008) The Social Network (2010) Incendies (2010) Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) Shame (2011) The Hunt (2012) The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) Winter Sleep (2014) Mommy (2014) Son of Saul (2015) Room (2015) Spotlight (2015) Manchester by the Sea (2016) Paterson (2016) Columbus (2017) The Florida Project (2017)
(25) James Bond Dr. No (1962) Goldfinger (1964) Casino Royale (2006) Skyfall (2012) The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) GoldenEye (1995)
(26) Romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) The Princess Bride (1987) When Harry Met Sally... (1989) There’s Something About Mary (1998) Amélie (2001) Punch-Drunk Love (2002) Sideways (2004) The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) 500 Days of Summer (2009)
(27) Robert Bresson Diary of a Country Priest (1951) A Man Escaped (1956) Pickpocket (1959) Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Mouchette (1967) The Devil, Probably (1977) L'Argent (1983)
(28) Political thriller Z (1969) Three Days of the Condor (1975) All the President's Men (1976) Blow Out (1981) Patriot Games (1992) The Lives of Others (2006) The Ides of March (2011) The Post (2017)
(29) Parody/spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) Dark Star (1974) Airplane! (1980) The Princess Bride (1987) Spaceballs (1987) The Naked Gun (1988) Hot Shots! (1991) Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) Austin Powers (1997) Galaxy Quest (1999) Black Dynamite (2009)
(30) Orson Welles Citizen Kane (1941) Touch of Evil (1958) The Trial (1962) Chimes at Midnight (1965) F for Fake (1973)
(31) Pixar Toy Story (1995) Finding Nemo (2003) Ratatouille (2007) WALL·E (2008) Up (2009) Inside Out (2015) Coco (2017)
(32) Pre-Code Hollywood The Blue Angel (1930) Frankenstein (1931) Freaks (1932) King Kong (1933) Duck Soup (1933) The Thin Man (1934)
(33) Superhero Superman (1978) X-Men (2000) Spider-Man (2002) The Dark Knight (2008) Iron Man (2008) The Avengers (2012) Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Logan (2017)
(34) War All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) The Longest Day (1962) The Train (1964) The Deer Hunter (1978) Apocalypse Now (1979) Das Boot (1981) Platoon (1986) Saving Private Ryan (1998) Black Hawk Down (2001) Dunkirk (2017)
(35) Stanley Kubrick Paths of Glory (1957) Lolita (1962) Dr. Strangelove (1964) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) A Clockwork Orange (1971) Barry Lyndon (1975) The Shining (1980) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
(36) Surrealism Entr'acte (1924) The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) L'Étoile de Mer (1928) An Andalusian Dog (1929) L'Age d'Or (1930) The Blood of a Poet (1930) Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
(37) Western Stagecoach (1939) The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) My Darling Clementine (1946) High Noon (1952) Shane (1953) The Searchers (1956) Rio Bravo (1959) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) The Wild Bunch (1969) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Dances with Wolves (1990) Unforgiven (1992) Meek's Cutoff (2010)
(38) Spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) For a Few Dollars More (1965) Django (1966) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) The Great Silence (1968) Duck, You Sucker! (1971)
(39) Swashbuckler Captain Blood (1935) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) The Sea Hawk (1940) The Four Musketeers (1974) The Three Musketeers (1993) The Mask of Zorro (1998)
(40) Werner Herzog Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) Stroszek (1977) La Soufrière (1977) Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Grizzly Man (2005)
(41) Nunsploitation The Devils (1971) School of the Holy Beast (1974) Killer Nun (1979) Nuns on the Run (1990) Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010) The Little Hours (2017)
(42) Psycho-Thriller Peeping Tom (1960) The Innocents (1961) Repulsion (1965) Bad Timing (1980) Possession (1981) Misery (1990) Jacob's Ladder (1990) Memento (2000) Martyrs (2008) Shutter Island (2010) Black Swan (2010) Only God Forgives (2013) Gone Girl (2014) Room (2015) The Neon Demon (2016)
(43) Krzysztof Kieślowski Dekalog (1989) The Double Life of Veronique (1991) Three Colors Trilogy (1993)
(44) Akira Kurosawa Rashomon (1950) Ikiru (1952) Seven Samurai (1954) Throne of Blood (1957) The Hidden Fortress (1958) Yojimbo (1961) Sanjuro (1962) High and Low (1963) Red Beard (1965) Kagemusha (1980) Ran (1985) Dreams (1990)
(45) LGBT Girls in Uniform (1931) Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) Je, tu, il, elle (1974) Paris Is Burning (1990) My Own Private Idaho (1991) All about My Mother (1999) Beau travail (1999) Tropical Malady (2004) Brokeback Mountain (2005) Shortbus (2006) Weekend (2011) Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013) Carol (2015) Moonlight (2016) Call Me by Your Name (2017)
(46) Yasujirô Ozu Late Spring (1949) Early Summer (1951) Tokyo Story (1953) Good Morning (1959) Floating Weeds (1959) An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
(47) Wuxia Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Hero (2002) House of Flying Daggers (2004) The Assassin (2015)
(48) Woody Allen Annie Hall (1977) Manhattan (1979) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Match Point (2005) Midnight in Paris (2011)
(49) Survival Walkabout (1971) The Edge (1997) Cast Away (2000) Shackleton (2002) Touching the Void (2003) Into the Wild (2007) 127 Hours (2010) All Is Lost (2013) The Revenant (2015)
(50) Robert Altman MAS*H (1970) McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) The Long Goodbye (1973) Nashville (1975) The Player (1992) Short Cuts (1993) Gosford Park (2001)
(51) Aliens Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Alien (1979) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) The Thing (1982) Aliens (1986) They Live (1988) The Abyss (1989) Independence Day (1996) District 9 (2009) Arrival (2016) Annihilation (2018)
(52) Rainer Werner Fassbinder The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1973) In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Veronika Voss (1982)
(53) Michelangelo Antonioni L'Avventura (1960) La Notte (1961) L'Eclisse (1962) Red Desert (1964) Blow-Up (1966)
(54) Martial Arts Fist of Fury (1972) Enter the Dragon (1973) The Street Fighter (1974) Drunken Master (1978) The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) Wheels on Meals (1984) Police Story (1985) Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) Ong Bak (2003) Ip Man (2008)
(55) Lars von Trier Breaking the Waves (1996) The Idiots (1998) Dancer in the Dark (2000) Dogville (2003) The Five Obstructions (2003) Antichrist (2009) Melancholia (2011)
(56) Horror Cat People (1942) Rosemary's Baby (1968) Night of the Living Dead (1968) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Halloween (1978) Dawn of the Dead (1978) Friday the 13th (1980) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Scream (1996) The Village (2004) The Descent (2005) Let the Right One In (2008) The Witch (2015) It Follows (2015) The Wailing (2016) It (2017)
(57) Supernatural horror The Exorcist (1973) Poltergeist (1982) The Devil's Advocate (1997) The Blair Witch Project (1999) The Sixth Sense (1999) The Others (2001) The Babadook (2014)
(58) Romantic drama Casablanca (1942) Brief Encounter (1945) Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) All That Heaven Allows (1955) Imitation of Life (1959) Doctor Zhivago (1965) Romeo and Juliet (1968) The Remains of the Day (1993) Sense and Sensibility (1995) Titanic (1997) The Notebook (2004) Atonement (2007) Blue Valentine (2010) Laurence Anyways (2012)
(59) Wes Anderson Rushmore (1998) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) The Darjeeling Limited (2007) Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
(60) Thriller M (1931) The Night of the Hunter (1955) The French Connection (1971) The Conversation (1974) Sorcerer (1977) The Vanishing (1988) Jurassic Park (1993) Speed (1994) Run Lola Run (1998) The Bourne Identity (2002) Infernal Affairs (2002) Collateral (2004) Miami Vice (2006) No Country for Old Men (2007) Prisoners (2013) Nightcrawler (2014) Green Room (2015)
(61) Michael Haneke The Seventh Continent (1989) Funny Games (1997) Code Unknown (2000) The Piano Teacher (2001) Caché (2005) The White Ribbon (2009) Amour (2012)
(62) Giallo The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) Deep Red (1975) Suspiria (1977) Tenebrae (1982) The New York Ripper (1982)
(63) Musical Top Hat (1935) The Wizard of Oz (1939) Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Singin' in the Rain (1952) A Star Is Born (1954) West Side Story (1961) Mary Poppins (1964) The Sound of Music (1965) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) Cabaret (1972) Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Phantom of the Paradise (1974) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Saturday Night Fever (1977) Grease (1978) All That Jazz (1979) Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Moulin Rouge! (2001) Les Misérables (2012) La La Land (2016)
(64) Racism To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) In the Heat of the Night (1967) The Color Purple (1985) Do the Right Thing (1989) American History X (1998) This Is England (2006) 12 Years a Slave (2013) Selma (2014) Get Out (2017)
(65) Federico Fellini I Vitelloni (1953) La Strada (1954) The Nights of Cabiria (1957) La Dolce Vita (1960) 8½ (1963) Juliet of the Spirits (1965) Satyricon (1969) Amarcord (1973)
(66) Early cinema The Arrival of a Train (1896) The Kiss (1896) The Man with the Rubber Head (1901) A Trip to the Moon (1902) The Great Train Robbery (1903) Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) The Birth of a Nation (1915) Intolerance (1916)
(67) David Lynch Eraserhead (1977) The Elephant Man (1980) Blue Velvet (1986) Wild at Heart (1990) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Lost Highway (1997) Mulholland Drive (2001) Inland Empire (2006)
(68) Crime Le Samouraï (1967) The Godfather (1972) The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) Scarface (1983) Once Upon a Time in America (1984) The Untouchables (1987) The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) Heat (1995) City of God (2002) Catch Me If You Can (2002) Memories of Murder (2003) Lord of War (2005) The Town (2010) Victoria (2015) Sicario (2015) Baby Driver (2017) Good Time (2017)
(69) Heist The Sting (1973) Dog Day Afternoon (1975) The First Great Train Robbery (1978) Ocean's Eleven (2001) Heist (2001) The Italian Job (2003) Inside Man (2006) Inception (2010) The Town (2010)
(70) Paul Thomas Anderson Boogie Nights (1997) Magnolia (1999) There Will Be Blood (2007) The Master (2012) Phantom Thread (2017)
(71) Action comedy 48 Hrs. (1982) Lethal Weapon (1987) Maverick (1994) True Lies (1994) Bad Boys (1995) Men in Black (1997) Starship Troopers (1997) Three Kings (1999) Kung Fu Hustle (2004) Hot Fuzz (2007) 21 Jump Street (2012) Spy (2015) Deadpool (2016)
(72) Anime Angel's Egg (1985) Grave of the Fireflies (1988) Akira (1988) Ghost in the Shell (1995) Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (1997) Perfect Blue (1997) Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) Millennium Actress (2001) Mind Game (2004) Paprika (2006) The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013) Your Name. (2016)
(73) David Cronenberg Videodrome (1983) The Fly (1986) Naked Lunch (1991) A History of Violence (2005) Eastern Promises (2007)
(74) Docufiction Nanook of the North (1922) On the Bowery (1956) In Vanda's Room (2000) Colossal Youth (2006) My Winnipeg (2007)
(75) Edward Yang Taipei Story (1985) A Brighter Summer Day (1991) Yi Yi (2000)
(76) Fantasy The Dark Crystal (1982) The NeverEnding Story (1984) Delicatessen (1991) Being John Malkovich (1999) The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) The Fall (2006) Avatar (2009) Holy Motors (2012) A Ghost Story (2017) The Shape of Water (2017)
(77) Sharks Jaws (1975) Deep Blue Sea (1999) Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) Shark Night (2011) Sharknado (2013) The Shallows (2016)
(78) Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs (1992) Pulp Fiction (1994) Jackie Brown (1997) Kill Bill (2003) Inglourious Basterds (2009) Django Unchained (2012) The Hateful Eight (2015)
(79) Japan Ugetsu (1953) Sansho the Bailiff (1954) Harakiri (1962) Woman in the Dunes (1964) Kwaidan (1964) Onibaba (1964) The Face of Another (1966) Eros + Massacre (1969) Maborosi (1995) Cure (1997) All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) Nobody Knows (2004) Strange Circus (2005) The Calamari Wrestler (2005) Big Man Japan (2007) Love Exposure (2008) Confessions (2010) Like Father, Like Son (2013)
(80) Jacques Tati Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953) Mon Oncle (1958) Playtime (1967)
(81) Alfred Hitchcock Rebecca (1940) Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Notorious (1946) Rope (1948) Strangers on a Train (1951) Dial M for Murder (1954) Rear Window (1954) Vertigo (1958) North by Northwest (1959) Psycho (1960) The Birds (1963)
(82) Animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Pinocchio (1940) Fantasia (1940) Dumbo (1941) Bambi (1942) Fantastic Planet (1973) The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976) Only Yesterday (1991) Beauty and the Beast (1991) The Lion King (1994) The Prince of Egypt (1998) The Iron Giant (1999) The Triplets of Belleville (2003) The Incredibles (2004) Persepolis (2007) Waltz with Bashir (2008) How to Train Your Dragon (2010) It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) The Red Turtle (2016)
(83) Iran Where is the Friend's Home? (1987) Close-Up (1990) A Moment of Innocence (1996) Taste of Cherry (1997) Certified Copy (2010) A Separation (2011) The Salesman (2015)
(84) Jean Renoir A Day in the Country (1936) La Grande Illusion (1937) The Rules of the Game (1939) French Cancan (1955)
(85) Monster The Blob (1953) Godzilla (1954) Tarantula (1955) Cloverfield (2008) Trollhunter (2010)
(86) Wim Wenders Alice in the Cities (1974) Kings of the Road (1976) The American Friend (1977) Paris, Texas (1984) Wings of Desire (1987)
(87) Teen American Graffiti (1973) Over the Edge (1979) The Warriors (1979) Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) Rumble Fish (1983) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) Stand by Me (1986) Boyz n the Hood (1991) Kids (1995) Fucking Åmål (1998) Heathers (1988) Ken Park (2002) Mean Girls (2004) Superbad (2007) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) Spring Breakers (2012) The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Boyhood (2014) Lady Bird (2017)
(88) Buster Keaton Our Hospitality (1923) Sherlock Jr. (1924) The General (1926) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) The Cameraman (1928)
(89) Cannibal films Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Eaten Alive! (1980) Cannibal Ferox (1981) Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) Cannibal! The Musical (1993)
(90) Carl Theodor Dreyer The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Vampyr (1932) Day of Wrath (1943) Ordet (1955) Gertrud (1964)
(91) Hippie The Love-Ins (1967) Psych-Out (1968) Zabriskie Point (1970) Hair (1979)
(92) Martin Scorsese Mean Streets (1973) Taxi Driver (1976) Raging Bull (1980) The King of Comedy (1982) After Hours (1985) Goodfellas (1990) The Age of Innocence (1993) Casino (1995) The Departed (2006) The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
(93) Mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) Clue (1985) The Usual Suspects (1995) The Game (1997) Donnie Darko (2001) The Prestige (2006) The Man from Earth (2007)
(94) Pier Paolo Pasolini The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966) Teorema (1968) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
(95) Prison The Great Escape (1963) Cool Hand Luke (1967) Escape from Alcatraz (1979) The Shawshank Redemption (1994) A Prophet (2009)
(96) Yakuza Tokyo Drifter (1966) Branded to Kill (1967) Ichi the Killer (2001) Zatōichi (2003) Outrage (2010)
(97) War drama The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Die Brücke (1959) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) The Battle of Algiers (1966) The Cranes Are Flying (1957) Come and See (1985) Schindler's List (1993) The Pianist (2002) Downfall (2004) The Hurt Locker (2008) Beasts of No Nation (2015)
(98) German expressionism The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) The Golem (1920) Nosferatu (1922) The Last Laugh (1924)
(99) Comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) Divorce, Italian Style (1962) The Pink Panther (1963) The Great Race (1965) The Odd Couple (1968) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Life of Brian (1979) The Jerk (1979) The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) Tampopo (1985) A Fish Called Wanda (1988) My Cousin Vinny (1992) Office Space (1999) Jackass: The Movie (2002) Anchorman (2004) Borat (2006) The Hangover (2009)
(100) 90s action Total Recall (1990) Terminator 2 (1991) Point Break (1991) El Mariachi (1992) The Fugitive (1993) The Rock (1996) Mission: Impossible (1996) Con Air (1997) Face/Off (1997) The Matrix (1999)
(101) Andrei Tarkovsky Andrei Rublev (1966) Solaris (1971) The Mirror (1974) Stalker (1979) Nostalgia (1983) The Sacrifice (1986)
(102) Satire Sullivan's Travels (1941) The Producers (1967) If.... (1968) Blazing Saddles (1974) Network (1976) American Beauty (1999) Fight Club (1999) American Psycho (2000) Thank You for Smoking (2005) Idiocracy (2006) In the Loop (2009)
(103) Music A Hard Day's Night (1964) The Blues Brothers (1980) Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Stop Making Sense (1984) Amadeus (1984) Sister Act (1992) Buena Vista Social Club (1999) Almost Famous (2000) 8 Mile (2002) Ray (2004) Whiplash (2014)
(104) Alejandro Jodorowsky El Topo (1970) The Holy Mountain (1973) Santa Sangre (1989)
(105) Avant-garde documentary Man With a Movie Camera (1929) Blow Job (1964) News from Home (1977) Koyaanisqatsi (1982) Baraka (1992) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000) I was moving ahead … (2000) Habitat (2012)
(106) Ernst Lubitsch I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918) Trouble in Paradise (1932) Ninotchka (1939) The Shop Around the Corner (1940) To Be or Not to Be (1942)
(107) Erotic Last Tango in Paris (1972) In the Realm of the Senses (1976) Body Double (1984) Basic Instinct (1992) The Handmaiden (2016)
(108) Sci-fi The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Planet of the Apes (1968) THX 1138 (1971) Star Wars (1977) Blade Runner (1982) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) On the Silver Globe (1988) Twelve Monkeys (1995) Star Trek: First Contact (1996) The Fifth Element (1997) Gattaca (1997) The Matrix (1999) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) Minority Report (2002) Primer (2004) Moon (2009) Cloud Atlas (2012) Her (2013) Gravity (2013) Edge of Tomorrow (2014) Ex Machina (2014) Interstellar (2014) The Martian (2015)
(109) Tim Burton Edward Scissorhands (1990) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Ed Wood (1994) Mars Attacks! (1996) Big Fish (2003) Sweeney Todd (2007)
(110) Stoner films Up in Smoke (1978) Half Baked (1998) How High (2001) Pineapple Express (2008)
(111) Sports drama The Hustler (1961) Rocky (1976) Remember the Titans (2000) Million Dollar Baby (2004) The Wrestler (2008) The Fighter (2010) Moneyball (2011) Creed (2015)
(112) Powell & Pressburger The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) The Red Shoes (1948) Black Narcissus (1947)
(113) Dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) Brazil (1985) Dark City (1998) Battle Royale (2000) 28 Days Later... (2002) V for Vendetta (2005) Children of Men (2006) The Road (2009) Snowpiercer (2013) The Maze Runner (2014)
(114) Luis Buñuel The Young and the Damned (1950) Viridiana (1961) The Exterminating Angel (1962) Simon of the Desert (1965) Belle de Jour (1967) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
(115) Documentary Night and Fog (1956) Shoah (1985) The Thin Blue Line (1988) Hoop Dreams (1994) Man on Wire (2008) Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) Leviathan (2012) The Act of Killing (2012) Tim's Vermeer (2013)
(116) Modern action 300 (2006) The Raid: Redemption (2011) Dredd (2012) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Hardcore Henry (2016)
(118) Rape revenge The Virgin Spring (1960) I Spit on Your Grave (1978) Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Irreversible (2002) I Saw the Devil (2010)
(119) Wong Kar-wai Chungking Express (1994) Fallen Angels (1995) Happy Together (1997) In the Mood for Love (2000) 2046 (2004)
(120) Horror comedy Young Frankenstein (1974) House (1977) An American Werewolf in London (1981) Dead Alive (1992) Shaun of the Dead (2004) The Cabin in the Woods (2012) What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
(121) Courtroom drama 12 Angry Men (1957) Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) The Verdict (1982) A Few Good Men (1992) The Rainmaker (1997)
(122) Charlie Chaplin The Tramp (1915) The Kid (1921) The Circus (1928) City Lights (1931) The Great Dictator (1940) Limelight (1952)
(123) Yakuza Tokyo Drifter (1966) Branded to Kill (1967) Ichi the Killer (2001) Zatōichi (2003) Outrage (2010)
(124) Splatter Blood Feast (1963) The Wizard of Gore (1970) The Evil Dead (1981) Bad Taste (1987)
(125) Africa Black Girl (1966) Touki Bouki (1973) Hotel Rwanda (2004) Moolaadé (2004) Timbuktu (2014)
(126) Ancient Rome Quo Vadis (1951) Ben-Hur (1959) Spartacus (1960) Cleopatra (1963) Caligula (1979) Gladiator (2000)
(127) Biography The Life of Emile Zola (1937) Patton (1970) Gandhi (1982) Malcolm X (1992) Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) Schindler's List (1993) Monster (2003) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) Lincoln (2012)
(128) John Cassavetes Shadows (1958) Faces (1968) A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
(129) Eastern Europe Ashes and Diamonds (1958) Daisies (1966) Cremator (1969) Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) Damnation (1988) Satantango (1994) Underground (1995) Black Cat, White Cat (1998) Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) No Man's Land (2001) The Turin Horse (2011) Ida (2013)
(130) Russia Brother (1997) Russian Ark (2002) The Return (2003) The Sun (2005) Hard to Be a God (2013) Leviathan (2014)
(131) Religion The Ten Commandments (1956) The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) The Mission (1986) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) The Passion of the Christ (2004) Silence (2016)
(132) Cult films Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) Barbarella (1968) Pink Flamingos (1972) Tron (1982) Ghostbusters (1984) Repo Man (1984) The Toxic Avenger (1984) Back to the Future (1985) Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Surf Nazis Must Die (1987) Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) Army of Darkness (1992) Wayne’s World (1992) Clerks (1994) Bad Boy Bubby (1994) Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000) Donnie Darko (2001) Freddy Got Fingered (2001) The Brown Bunny (2003) The Room (2003) Fateful Findings (2013)
(133) Unsorted L'Atalante (1934) Children of Paradise (1945) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Pather Panchali (1955) Marketa Lazarová (1967) The Conformist (1970) Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) Cinema Paradiso (1988) Dead Man (1995) Life Is Beautiful (1997) Pi (1998) Being John Malkovich (1999) Adaptation. (2002) The Illusionist (2006) Synecdoche, New York (2008) Dogtooth (2009) Enter the Void (2009) Inception (2010) Rubber (2010) The Great Beauty (2013) Birdman (2014) A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) Inherent Vice (2014) Chef (2014) The Lobster (2015) The Big Short (2015) Swiss Army Man (2016)
(134) Home Invasion Home Alone (1990) Panic Room (2002) Borgman (2013) The Gift (2015) Don't Breathe (2016)
(135) Historical The Leopard (1963) A Man for All Seasons (1966) Quest for Fire (1981) The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Braveheart (1995)
(136) New Hollywood Bonnie and Clyde (1967) The Graduate (1967) Five Easy Pieces (1970) The Last Picture Show (1971) Harold and Maude (1971) Easy Rider (1969)
(137) Hayao Miyazaki Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) Castle in the Sky (1986) My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) Porco Rosso (1992) Princess Mononoke (1997) Spirited Away (2001) Howl's Moving Castle (2004) The Wind Rises (2013)
(138) Italian neorealism Rome, Open City (1945) Paisan (1946) Bicycle Thieves (1948) Stromboli (1950)

This has been bothering me for a while. Whenever people discuss the best James Bond movies of all time the usual suspects are Casino Royale, Goldfinger, Skyfall, From Russia with Love, OHMSS, and Goldeneye (if you’re young enough to have played the N64 game). But I want to add a serious contender that has been criminally overlooked. Conversations about Brosnan’s turn as 007 tend to agree that he was 1) a fantastic Bond who was 2) stuck with bad scripts. On the first point, yes, obviously. I’m convinced Pierce was genetically engineered in a laboratory to play Bond. On the second, I agree with one major exception.
Tomorrow Never Dies.
Let me start by saying I love Goldeneye. It’s the movie (and game) that began my love for the series and character. But, being totally honest, it’s a fairly average plot and script. And it has major pacing issues. And the 90s synth-y soundtrack is, at times, totally unbearable. The Ferrari/Aston Martin race music is the worst. The. Worst. I’d rank Goldeneye top 10. But not a real contender in the top 5 conversation.
Tomorrow Never Dies, on the other hand, might be the second or third best film of the franchise. Here’s my case broken-down into broad topics:
Plot. As is often the case with the spy genre, a lot of the Bond films have weaving twists-and-turns in plot. Lots of complication and misdirection. Through-lines can be muddled and hard to find sometimes. For example, I’ve watched Quantum of Solace three or four times and I’m still not 100% sure what happened. Something about water. Ya know. Complication. You find this in a lot of Bond films. TND, on the other hand, is very clear and fun to follow. A war between Britain and China is being orchestrated by a media mogul for rating/money. You can easily write a good log-line for this movie. In fact, that’s one of my tests for a Bond film: how hard is it to write a one sentence summary? And how interesting is that summary? TND passes that test for me.
Realism. While Casino Royale will always be the most grounded in reality, I think Tomorrow Never Dies is right there too. Hear me out. You know the term yellow journalism? I hate to take you back to high school history, but it essentially started during the Spanish-American war. William Randolph Hearst was trying to crush competing newspapers. And his solution was to, essentially, manufacture a war because wars sell papers. Enough papers to kill the competition. In fact, the movie even references Hearst. The villain, Elliot Carver, wants exclusive broadcast rights in China. So not only does he sell newspapers and TV time for his insider-scoops (on the war he’s creating), he also gets a monopoly on an entire country’s consumption. Look, man. We live in a world with Rupert Murdoch and Comcast. The entire premise is pretty plausible to me. Bond film or not.
Michelle Yeoh. For all the pre-release hype surrounding Die Another Day's Halle Berry being a strong, empowered female character in the Bond universe, she’s nothing compared to Yeoh’s Wai Lin. She’s just as capable as Bond, doesn’t need his help (except for that one time she does), and is generally kickass. She’s not some damsel in distress. And, most importantly, the movie doesn’t make a big deal about it. She’s a spy. Good at her job. And that’s it. They had talked about doing a Berry/Jinx spin-off series that no one would have watched. But I’d have loved more of Lin’s adventures.
Cinematography. I feel like this one is completely overlooked. Robert Elswit is an Academy Award winner for his work on There Will Be Blood, nominated for Good Night, Good Luck, and he has an impressive body of work overall. And, in my opinion, this is the second prettiest Bond film after Skyfall. The man knows how to smoke a room, light it, and kiss us with a tasteful lens flare.
Pacing. I don’t know how to discuss pacing intelligently. I suppose it’s entirely subjective. But every time I watch TND the movie flies by. If you ask me, it’s the best paced Bond film hands down. Nothing feels excessive or superfluous. And no scene overstays its welcome or fails to serve a story purpose.
Soundtrack. It’s classic. No fashionable frills. Doesn’t fall victim to the stylistic interpretations of the day (I’m looking at you Goldeneye and everything in the 70s). The theme by Sheryl Crow is pretty average but serviceable. Given a choice, I’d take an okay theme in exchange for the classic instrumentation of the John Barry theme every time. And the non-theme OST work by David Arnold is great.
Everything else. There are dozens of other things I love. The humor is spot on. Decent gadget - the touchpad smart phone was cool; I find movie car chases pretty boring, but the BMW garage scene really worked for me. Random Ricky Jay as a hacker. Vincent Schiavelli 30 seconds as the torture doctor. Teri Hatcher in a garter belt.
Anyway. Those are the broad strokes on why I think TND is much, MUCH better than it’s reputation. Or lack thereof. I’m not sure what happened here. Maybe everyone was too distracted by Titanic to notice. Or maybe I’m completely off the mark. But this will always be a top 4 Bond film to me.
edit: formatting.

Greetings,
On the birthday of each album I try to make I normally post a long write up of the album's deeper meanings. On June 25th 该水总把它带走 turned 1. Its the sequel to 该水流有其言力 and you can read the first write up on that album here.
This album eventually made the /Vaporwave Best Album of 2017 list and was eventually picked up by Geometric Lullaby for a cassette release just last month. (Which sold out yay!)
But before all that started I was intrigued by the label 首都 TAPES INC. They were a label dedicated to releasing conceptual and story based albums. The follow text is a revised email excerpt I submitted explaining the story themes and concepts of this album. I hope you enjoy reading while listening! Please dont read if you rather let the music speak for itself.
The Story
TRACK 1: On the topic of uncertainty, like on the last album I sampled James Bond Casino Royale (2006), This time I wanted to also open with a movie sample. The first track of the album is a sample from the ending of the movie The Revenant (2015) (Spoilers Ahead). The movie ends with Robert Glass, finally getting his revenge after massive struggle through the American frontier. After losing everything, he focused his life solely on revenge and once he finally got it his life lost all meaning, the movie ends with a continuous shot of Robert Glass looking into the camera. No words were spoken but the emotion I captured in the final scenes of the movie was a simple look of purposelessness, doom and absolute turmoil. I wanted to begin this album with that exact feeling, the feeling of purposelessness. I felt like after saying goodbye in the ending of the first album, I sort of found myself at peace with the situation but life goes on, and finding meaning again in life again was an unnerving ordeal. The song title is a poor translation of the number four hundred, zero and four. I wanted the title to be 404 but I also wanted every single song title of the album to have four characters, representing the unlucky Chinese number which is often associated with death or loss. Which more or less has a tie to each song in the album, in this case having lost my purpose. And everyone knows 404 or HTTP 404 the common error message of “page not found”.
TRACK 2: The next song is fairly long and I wanted to represent this song as the sequel to the last. After losing my purpose. I wanted to paint the picture of many days passing. I wanted to convey the story of moving through life without any reason. I wanted every swell in the song to be a reminder of the crushing truth of having no direction in life. I was very much in this place for a while and I wanted this song to express the uncertainty of how life can be. I wanted to express the feeling of not knowing when the turmoil will end. The simple question of “What now?” and the extreme realization of never finding out and never escaping this paralyzing fate of mystery. The song title is a poor translating of “How Fragile it is”, which was an observation of my mental psyche, and how sometimes, the simplest questions in life can drive you mad. The song ends beautifully representing me finally finding the solution to my crisis after many days of moving through life, lost. There was a point in my life where I thought killing myself would bring the answers to my questions. I thought it would put my mind at ease and it would finally free from seeing the next meaningless morning.
The song sampled is from this album called, Hymn to the Immortal Wind (2009) by MONO. The album and band were a strong influence on my emotional journey and many of the track titles and emotions of the album were related to moving on to the next life and the beauty that comes after death, at least in my opinion.
TRACK 3: The next song picks up from where the last song leaves. I more or less found the answer to my problems. Suicide. The song itself has many pretty sounding string arrangements and the music itself conveys a sort of sincerity. For a while I felt at peace again with my dark answer to my problems but at the same time I was torn between the choices. The song climaxes with my ultimate choice of choosing death or seeing the next meaningless morning. I wanted this song to express an extra level of drama in my crisis. The slow build up and climax are literally the choice between my own life or my own death, all for the sake of finding meaning in my life. Choosing life was a difficult in that I would be returned to my former problems, purposelessness. The song title is poorly translated to, “the former” which is a vague expression of my ultimate choice and sort of an observation of my current life or rather how my life was formally.
The song sampled is from the movie Princess Mononoke (1997), there was a powerful quote in the film in Iron town where a very sick leper says,

Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed, but you still find reasons to keep living.

I wanted that to ultimately be a reminder when I personally would listen to this song. I wanted this song to tell the story of contemplation of suicide but also a reminder of reason why I choose to keep living.
TRACK 4: The story continues with the next song in my search for meaning or in this case, a new way to escape my problems, Alcoholism. I wanted to paint a picture of a quiet but classy bar scene. I wanted this song to express a sort of twisted bliss, or a beautiful tragedy. I wanted this song to be a break from the drama of the last three songs. Although I see it as a break I still wanted to convey a sense of darkness in the story. Alcoholism isn’t a positive remedy to my problems, but at the same time I wanted this song to be a temporary solution in escaping one’s own issues and the false joy it brings. Even for just a little,
The song title is poorly translated to “Abandon the world”. Which was another way of expressing my temporary escape from my mental qualms though the consumption of alcohol.
TRACK 5: The next song returns to the darkness in a different approach. Being that it’s the beginning of the 2nd half of the album I wanted the album to exit the perspective of my mind and slowly pan out into 3rd person. I wanted the story to have an element of sexiness. The entire album is heavily based on film noir themes that I will elaborate on afterwards, but I wanted this song to be a representation of admiring my former solutions of suicide. Although I choose not to enact on it I still find some twisted joy that there is still technically a way out. A distinct memory I associate with is song is being in my bath tub in very warm water. I recently watched the film La Noire de… (1966) where Diouana kills herself in the in the family bath tub. The scene depicts only her head above the water resting on a pillow in a tub full of red blood. I remember thinking about that and how at peace she looked. I remember thinking how comfortable the water was and of course how I could bathe there forever. I thought about how the warm water could wash away all my problems. I thought about how the water could just take it all away, which was the inspiration for the, poorly translated, title of the album.
The song itself is poorly translated to “Imagine blood” which were my thoughts in the tub. The symbolism of water in this song calls back to the first song on my first album. The observations of water and how water is a living force. I saw water in this sense as the feminine fatal in my story. The alluring desires of the water tempted me with seeing death as the solution, as if the water was a living person alongside me, naked in the tub.
(Heres the music video!)
TRACK 6: Exiting the tub of temptations. In the next song, I continue my search for meaning. I wanted this song to return to feelings of sobriety similar to track 2, where I’m faced with the feelings of purposelessness but this time, I have more of a refined aim. I still wanted to convey the lost feeling the music brings but also bring the subtle expression of hope, similar to my situation of knowing what I don’t want to do but also the hardship of having no meaning yet. The song is supposed to paint the picture of the beauty in "trying" itself. The act of not giving up and having determination.
The song is poorly translated to “can not keep up” which is a feeling I’ve been doused with. I haven’t mentioned hell in a while but hell is another big theme in both my albums. I wanted to paint a picture, again where the setting isn’t just inside my head anymore. I wanted the imagery of this song to continue to pan out. I want the focus to be my surroundings not so much what’s going on inside my head anymore. “Can not keep up” was a visual observation of how big and lonely the world is and how finding meaning or love in this massive world at first glance may seem simple but in reality it can be very difficult. But everyone still finds reasons to live on.
The past three songs were sampled from the video game Bayonetta (2009), which was fitting since the game is about Bayonetta’s relationship to hell etc.
TRACK 7: Moving forward with the visuals and settings, I’m from New York City, and it’s the city that made me who I am. Its been the back drop I tie many many emotions to. The next song is a further zoom out of the frame leaving my mind. I wanted the focus to be about New York, hence the very Batman-esque sort of sounds. I wanted this song to bring a point of view experience for the listener. I wanted them to be immersed in my walk forwards in the city I come from. I wanted to paint this complex idea to the listener.

I’ve tied too much to this city, and I’ve lost too much as well. I’m constantly reminded of memories that no longer carry joy. I’m only reminded of the pain of loss. Every date, every kiss, every happy moment shared with my loved one is speckled across the city walls. The roads, the skies, the water. The view of the city is has become difficult to look at. Its become difficult to see. I wave my hand quickly across my point of view, turning away, closing my eyes. It’s become very much a blur to me. I no longer want to look at it, for it only brings a reminder of every crushing feeling I’ve experienced before. This city was the setting of all of our pain and all of our our joy. It continues on without us. The un-moveable back drop I choose to blur out. The speckled memories I choose not to see anymore. I tell myself if I paint the city a different color I might find new meaning in my life. But one step at a time, I haven’t even smudged out all the colors yet.

The song title is poorly translated to “How Blurred”. Which is a view point in the monologue of how my search for meaning might be solved if I just forget or if I blind myself by blurring my surroundings.
TRACK 8: The last song, is titled translated to “recalled efforts”, representing the conclusion and summary of the album. I had another monologue written that I wanted to be used as the description of the album but also the meaning of this song.

A return to water. To wash away and endure the suffering. A return to the blank meaningless pavement. Mailed through the blur of all these inconceivable moments. The water always takes it away. Maybe I’ll find home. Here. Why rush for the man to come around. I already know where I’m going. The colors are all so clear.

In terms of meaning, this monologue calls back to a few themes and ideas across the other songs in the album. I wanted this last song to convey the color I wanted to repaint the city. Repainting eventually became my solution in my search for meaning. In a way, I wanted repainting to represent starting a new, forgetting the past and really, painting over a part of myself I could no longer mend.
In a way I wanted this ending to be the closest thing to suicide. Not so much the destruction of my physical being but more so the erasing of one’s self from all recognizability. I wanted to remind the listener of the scary truth that sometimes, we need to pretend like everything is okay even though its not. The pain of knowing there are problems in the world and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it. In the end, I never really found the answer or meaning in my life. I just do what I had to do to keep moving on. I wanted to leave the listener with a disturbed sense of content. The song itself is a beautiful piece. Its calm and is a drastic difference from the very first track on the album. Yet the feeling is more collected in the sense that I’m feeling less astray, although my dreadful problems technically still never went away.
Samples used in tracks 7 & 8 are from The Big O (1999). the show took place in Paradigm City also know as The City of Amnesia, where after "The Event" everyone lost their prior memories, similar in my choice to erase myself.
RECAP:

All in all the story of the album is sequel to my last album. After saying goodbye, I found myself lost in my own life, surrounded in a city constantly reminded me of memories I no longer hold dear. I was trapped in my own mind, meaning for life quickly became groundless. Contemplations and temptations of suicide came close, but I found it in myself to search for meaning. I rejected my surroundings and repainted the world I wanted to see. I painted over everything that reminded me of the pain. I repainted myself to the point of unrecognizability. The paint was clear, the same color of water. The same color of hell. Meaning was never found. Problems were never solved and the city I stood upon appeared untouched. I looked at my refection in the water, and all I can see was a blur.

Themes
Noir: In this album common themes found in film noir can be found in each of the songs on the album.
Track 1: Ambivalent Endings
Track 2: Existential crisis effects main character, Mystery and the search for answers
Track 3: Moral ambiguity, Anyone can die
Track 4: The alcoholic
Track 5: Joy of self-destructive acts, Femme Fatale
Track 6: Alienation, City Narrows
Track 7: City noir, Descent into shadows
Track 8: Black and grey morality
Yin and Yang: The positivity and darkness in this album shine purposefully in each song as well as the cover art plus title character lengths and track number total.
Track 1: Pain of being lost, Joy of last album's closure
Track 2: Pain of the existential crisis, Joy of finding a solution
Track 3: Pain of choosing life, Joy of choosing death
Track 4: Pain of self destruction, Joy of escapism
Track 5: Pain of temptation, Joy of relaxation
Track 6: Pain of loneliness, Joy of determination
Track 7: Pain of abandoning one's self, Joy of new surroundings
Track 8: Pain of never finding the answer, Joy of forgetting
All Track titles carry four characters, but there are eight track in total. Four being unlucky, 8 being the opposite.
The cover art I intentionally made 50% black and 50% a mix of reds.
Art Themes: I wanted the art to convey the imagery of the blurred city. The photo itself is a long exposure shot on a moving camera. The streaks were made by car headlights in the city of New York. But I also wanted the red streaks to be a reminder of the blood or the temptation of suicide. The two seals on the top right corner were inspired by classic Chinese signature or poetry seals. I stacked them on top of each other symbolizing the story inside my head (the beginnings of the album) and the story with my relationship with my surroundings (2nd half). The seals are also the song titles, having poetic nature.
The excerpt ends here.
I hope you enjoyed reading this write up. This album has become something I'm really proud of and hopfully one day I'll release this on vinyl. I want to thank 首都 TAPES INC., Geometric Lullaby, The Vaporwave community and anyone who ever gave this album a listen. I poured my very soul into this album and I hope its moved you in some sorta way. You're not alone.
Best,
W¯¯

http://screenhooked.com/2015/11/22/spectre/
SPOILER WARNING
Alright, it’s been two weeks. I’ve had the same “spoiler-free” discussion with about 15 people now, and I’m ready to put out my thoughts after finally seeing it. I’m already sick of talking about this movie, so this thesis will be filled with SPOILERS.
I guess I should start at the beginning. The long take at the opening is probably the most impressive I’ve ever seen. It tops every shot in Birdman, Rope or Star Trek. The rest of the sequence, however, fell flat. It doesn’t appear to me that in Spectre, Daniel Craig doesn’t want to do Bond anymore (though he doesn’t, and I accept that), more than he’s very comfortable in the role of 007, but his stiff walking through crowds doesn’t convey a real sense of urgency no matter how many quick cuts, nervous camera shakes, or intense music Sam Mendes throws in.
Classic Bond films typically opened towards the end of a mission completely irrelevant to the plot that gets you in the mood to see Bond, and sets the tone for the rest of the film. Spectre fulfills almost all of that, especially the last part, because the tone they were going for was “long, drawn out, and a little goofy.” The chase through the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City wasn’t interesting. I’m not talking about Bond’s little rogue mission, but the chase itself. I can leave the building blowing up randomly alone, and I thought the couch landing was a nice nod to the Roger Moore films (I would later find more and more), but how many times do we have to watch Bond take down a helicopter in these movies? I know there’s a finite amount of ideas one can do, but there’s no suspense in this opening sequence because this thing is 150 minutes long, and Bond has to live through it, and this guy hasn’t been in a hospital since he was born, so shorten the action sequence to where the helicopter only does ONE barrel roll, and let us move on to the title sequence.
Now, I find the opening sequence absolutely gorgeous, but most people have complained about the song by Sam Smith, which I’m okay with, it’s not the worst Bond theme, and you’re not going to top Skyfall, so I can let that go. I’m going to skip over the obvious tentacle porn joke, because I really like how they integrated the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. logo. Unlike most Bond title sequences, this didn’t bore the shit out of me, so I’ll give them props for that. But there’s still no constant theme running through (besides the tentacles), which is part of what made Casino Royale‘s title sequence so great. Still, this is probably the last thing I would complain about.
Now, what I like about how they open the first act is how they handle the other characters of MI6 in addition to Bond. We see Bond’s barely decorated London apartment, which we’ve never seen before, an interesting, if unsurprising look into the private life of 007. M (Ralph Fiennes) used to just be a guy who gave Bond his missions from behind a desk, but we now actually see what he has to put up with, especially since now the 00 program is getting ready to be replaced by a mass surveillance system called “Nine Eyes.” Ben Whishaw’s skittish Q is still fitting nicely into Desmond Llewelyn’s shoes, and the “will they, won’t they” set up for Bond and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) feels natural. Bond reveals to Moneypenny that Judi Dench’s M posthumously sent him on a mission to kill his target in Mexico and “don’t miss the funeral.” So after M grounds Bond, he enlists Q and Moneypenny to help him carry out this personal mission that doesn’t really make any sense looking at it from M’s perspective. Shouldn’t this guy have already been a priority if Judi Dench was telling Bond about him from the dead right as he was planning to blow up a stadium?
Anyway, Q puts microbot tracking things in Bond’s bloodstream, which proves useless for the rest of the movie, because it’s supposed to add tension to the Bond disobeying M plot, but Q just lies to M over the phone anyway. It’s just one more thing we have to think about that doesn’t affect the overall story at all. Q could have contacted Bond in one way or another without approaching him in person at a ski resort psychiatrist’s office (seriously, what even is that place?). I’ll get more into Lea Seydoux’s Dr. Madeleine Swann later.
Bond goes to Rome for the funeral against M’s orders to attend the funeral of the guy he kicked out of a helicopter. The attendees are mostly made up of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. employees and the woman Bond made a widow. We get our first look at Christoph Waltz, who I thought was in the right amount of the movie (more on that later) but we don’t see his face, and he leaves as soon as Bond is in his peripheral vision. After saving the widow in a very Roger Moore-esque exchange, he begins seducing the widow with some of the most awkward kissing I’ve ever seen on film, before giving him the location of a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. meeting. We never see this woman again, checking the box for “The Bond girl nobody cares about.”
This is where it gets interesting. Bond attending the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. meeting was in all of the teasers, so the impact was most certainly lost. Christoph Waltz controls the room without saying a word or showing his face, which is all thanks to the cinematography and Mendes’ direction. I guess I’ll refer to him as Blofeld because it’s easier to type (and we all knew he was going to be Blofeld anyway). Blofeld addresses the events in Mexico, and Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) takes the place of the man at the other end of the table by gouging his eyes out with what appear to be metal fingernails. We don’t exactly get a good look at Hinx, for most of the time he’s on screen. It’s clear that he’s a near-indestructible monster, but… he’s Jaws. He’s just a bigger version of Jaws. I understand it’s difficult to create new villains in a time where everybody nitpicks the logic, but you moved the steel from one part of the body to another, and you made sure he didn’t talk until his last appearance. They even killed him the way Brody, Quint and Hooper tried to kill Jaws! After Blofeld addresses Bond directly, he runs and we get a boring car chase (though humorous in that half the car’s gadgets hadn’t been installed yet) capped off by Bond ejecting from the car. Meanwhile, we’re getting exposition from Moneypenny, and so we don’t groan at the idea of returning to Quantum of Solace, we’re given something almost as boring to look at.
Anyway, Bond goes to Austria to find Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) dying of thallium poisoning and eventually convinces him to lead him to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. through his daughter, Madeleine, who as all Bond girls do, rebuffs James at first before eventually succumbing to his charm after he saves her life. This is where I might go on a bit of a rant, because her addition to this cast and the plot drags out this movie and extra thirty minutes at least. Instead of White telling Bond about the hotel in Morocco, we have to wait until Bond gets it out of Swann, all because Bond had to be a man of his word. I guess they just wanted a chase sequence in the snow instead of Morocco because they already had Mexico as their “hot and arid climate” chase setting. I don’t hate Seydoux. She’s serviceable in her role, but she’s added in to up the stakes for Bond as a love-interest, which he shouldn’t have, because Eva Green’s Vesper was supposed to be the last woman Bond would ever love (or trust for that matter). This was just some bullshit added in so that Bond (by which I mean Daniel Craig) could have a reason to “leave” at the end. We now have to endure a long train conversation about guns and self-defense before Hinx interrupts and other shoehorned character development. Not to mention just waiting for stuff to happen like when they’re picked up in an old-fashioned Rolls Royce.
But back to Austria, it is revealed that all of the villains we’ve seen Craig’s Bond defeat (yes even in Quantum) is connected through S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and I’m fine with it. Is it forced? Sure, but what did we expect? This is one of several things in the movie meant to give it a finale vibe for both Craig and Mendes, a privilege no other Bond actor was ever given. Q is utilized well here, but like I said before, he doesn’t need to be there for anything other than the screen-time his agent probably fought for. Swann reveals the name White gave Bond is the hotel in Morocco, in which Bond drunkenly points a gun at a rat which leads him to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. That sounds ridiculous, and it is, but at this point, I don’t care, because we’re already deep into Roger Moore territory, so this already can’t be taken that seriously anymore. I don’t know how White accessed that room without tearing up the dry wall, but I’m letting that go, because we’ve got coordinates to a crater in the desert! I almost forgot about the car chase with the plane and the car after Madeleine is taken by Hinx, because nothing happens in it. Craig follows the car with the plane, they exchange bullets, and then Bond crashes the plane into the cars so he can get Madeleine. It’s a boring sequence that lasts way too long, but it’s okay, because we got the girl who refuses to talk to Bond that he will eventually have sex with.
So now we’re finally meeting Blofeld for real this time. The introductory sequence with the meteorite is beautifully shot, as is most of this movie. Aside from maybe Skyfall, this has the best cinematography of any Bond movie. Anyway, Blofeld reveals that he created Nine Eyes which will give S.P.E.C.T.R.E. unlimited access to the entire intelligence community (though it looks as if they already have it?) and monologues about his evil plan as Blofeld is prone to do. What follows is one of the best torture scenes in 007 canon, second only to Casino Royale‘s medieval vasectomy. Blofeld reveals his personal connection to James, as well as his full name “Ernst Stavros Blofeld” which he adopted from his mother’s side of the family. And this is something that I had mixed feelings about. I do think Blofeld should have some kind of personal beef with Bond. Bond messes with his operations, he killed Bond’s wife. That’s as simple as it should be. I think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Blofeld is essentially his step-brother with daddy issues. We’re supposed to think of Blofeld as a scoiopathic criminal mastermind, but here he’s just a child jealous of his father’s attention. And we get to think “Oh, well he’s crazy, so it all makes sense.” But Bond would probably remember Franz Oberhauser, and he doesn’t reveal that to anyone, not even the audience. I get that he’s not supposed to trust anyone, but he trusts everyone in this movie to do their jobs. I guess it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they knew Bond’s connection to him. This whole backstory just feels to convenient for me, and it feels dumb that these just happen to be the paths that both characters took. The whole “author of all your pain” thing feels like a desperate attempt at making Blofeld appear even more villainous, when all we need is him in the chair. Granted, this scene with the watch giving Blofeld his eye wound was a nice addition.
Bond handily escapes the facility killing S.P.E.C.T.R.E. soldiers one shot at a time while accidentally blowing up the entire station with one fire. He and Madeleine rendezvous in London with the now defunct 00 section of MI6 which only consists of M, Q, and Moneypenny (wouldn’t it be great to meet other 00 agents again?). I almost forgot Tanner (Rory Kinnear) but that’s just because he doesn’t do anything in this movie. On their way to arrest Max Denbigh, aka “C” (Andrew Scott [aka Moriarty from Sherlock]), Bond, M, and Q t-boned by a pick-up truck, which I didn’t think existed in England, and kidnap Bond. M has his final confrontation with C, and ends up killing him as Q disables Nine Eyes. I don’t really have any problems with the scene except I couldn’t discern the punchline to M’s “What does C stand for?” joke. I now know he said “careless” which feels like a wasted opportunity at a better punchline. During the entire movie, M has basically only monologued about the importance of the 00-section and being able to pull the trigger, something that has probably been said in at least once during every actor’s stint as 007. I understand this subplot needed to be fleshed out more for the final act of the movie, and it works, but the whole surveillance and drone approach is clearly more effective in some ways than 9 agents who can seemingly do whatever they want without real consequence. But the rest of the English government is even more idiotic for thinking surveillance and drones can fully replace humans in terms of crime-prevention. There’s nothing more I can really say about that, but I didn’t really find it necessary that C die, especially the way he did.
Moving on to the final showdown between Bond and Blofeld in the ruins of the old MI6 headquarters. Bond’s name painted in red on the memorial wall would have been a nice touch had they not shown it in the trailer, and the whole firing range walk-through is a little too reminiscent of The Man with the Golden Gun for me to praise anyone for it. Bond finds Blofeld standing in a bulletproof cage that only exits one direction. As cool as so much of this was, it was a little over theatrical for my taste. Blofeld wasn’t ever one for painting directions on the walls and putting up pictures of deceased friends and enemies, he was just a bad guy who wanted Bond out of his hair. Anyway, Blofeld gives Bond three minutes before he blows up what’s left of the building so that he can either escape or die trying to save Madeleine. This is where Bond should have just escaped and stopped Blofeld on his own, but he has to save the girl he has very little chemistry with so that the audience likes him. Connery used to pull women in front of bullets after having sex with them. I’m just saying it’s uncharacteristic of Bond, especially at this point in Craig’s run, to give up a chance at saving the world to save a girl with whom he spent a few days.
Of all the deus ex machinas this movie throws at us, this one has to be the worst. Bond eventually finds Madeleine with less than a minute to get out of the building. We get the cliche “Do you trust me?” which has been said at least a hundred different times in similar scenarios, including Bond movies. They jump off the building, in full view of Blofeld and henchmen, and they land safely in a giant net. What was a net even doing there? Why would that have been at MI6 headquarters? How was it still set up? I don’t know, but we needed them to escape, so we got it. Then what follows is yet another fucking helicopter chase, this time with a boat, because we can’t seem to have a Bond movie without helicopters and boats. Bond takes down the chopper just by shooting at it with his pistol. At first, I was okay with him being desperate enough as to not let Blofeld escape. I would have preferred Blofeld escape and Bond deal with the fact that he failed despite saving an innocent life. But no, this is once again a finale for Mendes and for Craig, so that chopper has to go down with a shot to the engine in the dark from hundreds of feet away. Bond chooses not to kill Blofeld with the excuse of not having any bullets and M arrests him. It’s just stupid. It’s Pierce Brosnan-era stupid. We can’t leave any glaring loose ends before switching actors, which has only happened in Diamonds are Forever which had Connery continuing Lazenby’s story from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The film ends with Bond driving off in the original Aston Martin with Madeleine, and thus concludes the story of the blonde blue-eyed Bond. Again, I have problems with this. The Aston Martin was a great reveal in Skyfall you can’t just do it again because you showed Q working to repair it early in the movie. That nostalgic hole was already filled. Also, as I’ve said earlier, Madeleine and Craig have terrible chemistry, and if anyone should be in the passenger seat of that car, it’s Moneypenny, but we needed a longer plot with more boring action sequences and a new Bond girl people care about, so Moneypenny is old news I guess.
I’m sure there’s more I could discuss, but that more or less concludes my review of Spectre. Craig’s Bond career has become a metaphor for the franchise as a whole, and instead of watching all 24 films now, you can just watch these four, and you’ll get the gist of it. The performances are all great, though I think the expectations for Christoph Waltz are unreasonably high, because everyone expects Hans Landa out of him. Craig’s Bond career has become a metaphor for the franchise as a whole, and instead of watching all 24 films now, you can just watch these four, and you’ll get the gist of it. Overall, Spectre is a solid entry in the Bond franchise. Yes, I said solid. Because what Bond fans have failed to realize, especially in recent years, is that very few of them are considered great films. The campy nature of most of these movies is a part of the Bond iconography, and Spectre exhibits some of the best and worst qualities of every era of the franchise. To reiterate some of the main points. It’s too long, the romance is contrived, pointless and unbelievable, the cinematography is off the charts, a lot of the action is lazily done, and while it does a good job of tying the rest of the Craig era together, it botched the relationship between the primary antagonist and the protagonist. Most of the people I know have already seen this, but in case you’ve read this detailed rant, I might still recommend it, because in spite of everything I’ve said, you can probably still enjoy it, and your opinion matters just as much as mine.
007: B
Average: C+
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2379713/

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 82%.

While every actor that takes the role may interpret what makes Bond slightly different the core elements, the confidence, the emotional detachment, the suave sexuality and the borderline psychopathy, remain the same.
A movie already exists that encapsulates perfectly what James Bond might be like as a woman, and that movie is The Long Kiss Goodnight.
While The Long Kiss Goodnight is very much a product of the time, the characters of Charly Baltimore and James Bond, at least as he is in the modern Bond films, share some very distinctive traits.
The structure of a typical Bond movie dictates that in the second act Bond is captured by the villain and attached to some elaborate and convoluted death device from which he must escape.
Casino Royale, even with the aforementioned torture scene, is rated PG-13 while The Long Kiss Goodnight is rated R. For a Bond movie to truly be a Bond movie there must be stakes and those stakes must take a physical toll, a Bond that isn't in any real physical danger is not a Bond that anyone is likely to take very seriously.
While we wait for the decision on who the new Bond will be and if you haven't seen it already then check out The Long Kiss Goodnight.

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