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All the James Bond movies in order

It can be tricky to know your Skyfall from your Thunderball, and your 007 for your Q, so here's how to watch all the James Bond movies in order.

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale

How do you watch the James Bond movies in order? It took a little longer than expected, but No Time To Die finally made it to cinemas in September 2021. 007 first hit cinema screens in 1962 (nine years after Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published). Since then, he has spent decades defeating supervillains and criminal masterminds, seducing beautiful women and drinking lots of Martini.

The latest new movie in the spy movie franchise was hugely successful, despite the obvious limitations of the pandemic. No Time To Die featured many of the familiar elements we associate with 007 – stunts, car chases, and evil plots aplenty. But, while much has stayed the same for our suave super-spy over the past 60 years, there have been many changes too (and we don’t just mean the lead actor and movie villains, a more enlightened role for the women, and fewer safari suits).

So get your tuxedo on, dig out your license to kill and join us on a multi-action movie mission debriefing, which explains how to watch the James Bond movies in order.

How do I watch all the James Bond movies in order?

  • Dr. No
  • From Russia with Love
  • Goldfinger
  • Thunderball
  • You Only Live Twice
  • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
  • Diamonds Are Forever
  • Live and Let Die
  • The Man with the Golden Gun
  • The Spy Who Loved Me
  • Moonraker
  • For Your Eyes Only
  • Octopussy
  • A View to a Kill
  • The Living Daylights
  • Licence to Kill
  • GoldenEye
  • Tomorrow Never Dies
  • The World Is Not Enough
  • Die Another Day
  • Casino Royale
  • Quantum of Solace
  • Skyfall
  • Spectre
  • No Time to Die

James Bond movies in order: Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No

Dr. No (1962)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Terence Young
Theme song: The Bond theme
Main villain: The metal-handed Dr No, who plans to use radio waves to sabotage a US space mission.
First appearance: M (Bernard Lee); Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell); Felix Leiter; SPECTRE; the gun barrel opening sequence.
Top stunt: A hard-as-nails fisticuffs between Bond driver, Mr Jones.
Memorable for: Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, emerging from the sea; the trio of assassins known as The Three Blind Mice; a calypso vibe; a cool, science fiction villain’s base.

James Bond movies in order: Sean Connery as James Bond in From Russia With Love

From Russia With Love (1963)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Terence Young
Theme song: From Russia With Love, performed by Matt Monro (used over the end titles)
Main villain: Donald Grant (Robert Shaw), an assassin hired by SPECTRE to kill Bond in revenge for killing Dr No.
Top stunt: Bond vs Grant train carriage fight.
First appearance: Desmond Llewelyn as Q; Blofeld (uncredited); a pre-credit scene; a “Bond will return in…” credit.
Memorable for: Rosa Klebb going after Bond with a poisoned knife in her shoe.

James Bond movies in order: Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger

Goldfinger (1964)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Guy Hamilton
Theme song: Goldfinger, performed by Shirley Bassey
Main villain: Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) who plans an audacious heist in Fort Knox.
Top stunt: In the series’ first iconic car chase, Bond’s Aston Martin comes with all kinds of deadly optional extras.
First appearance: The Aston Martin DB5
Memorable for: “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die” – Goldfinger threatening to bisect Bond with a laser; henchman Oddjob, with his blade-brimmed bowler hat; Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore.

James Bond movies in order: Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball

Thunderball (1965)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Terence Young
Theme song: Thunderball, performed by Tom Jones
Main villain: Eyepatch-wearing SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who blackmails NATO using their own stolen warheads.
Top stunt: Bond escapes the bad guys using a personal jet pack.
Memorable for: A bad guy disguised as a grieving widow; lots of underwater action; Bond in a red wetsuit; lots of harpooning.

James Bond movies in order: Donald Pleasance as Blofeld in You Only Live Twice

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Theme song: You Only Live Twice, performed by Nancy Sinatra
Main villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), who hijacks US and Soviet space shuttles in an attempt to ignite a war.
Top stunt: The entire sequence with ninjas infiltrating Blofeld’s volcanic lair.
Memorable for: Bond faking his own death; Blofeld’s awesome lair in a volcano; Bond flying an autogyro called Little Nellie.

James Bond movies in order: George Lazenby as James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Bond: George Lazenby
Director: Peter R. Hunt
Theme song: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Main villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), this time pretending to be a therapist in a snowy mountaintop clinic, secretly hypnotising women to become his ‘Angels of Death’.
Top stunt: A bob-sleigh chase.
Memorable for: Bond marrying Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) only to have her shot dead in the wedding car; Bond turning to the camera after a girl has run off from him, and saying, “This never happened to the other fella.”

James Bond movies in order: Sean Connery as James Bond in Diamonds are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Bond: Sean Connery
Director: Guy Hamilton
Theme song: Diamonds are Forever performed, by Shirley Bassey
Main villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray), surgically creating clones of himself and using diamonds to power a space weapon.
Best stunt: A car chase in Las Vegas that ends with Bond flipping his car onto two wheels to get through a narrow alleyway (the car exits the alley on the opposite two wheels due to a miscommunication between stunt teams during filming)
Memorable for: Bond on the Moon (sort of… it’s a fake Moon); a car chase involving a moon buggy; Bambi and Thumper, two bodyguards who turn gymnastics into a fighting art; Connery returning to the role.

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die (1973)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Guy Hamilton
Theme song: Live and Let Die, performed by Wings
Main villain: Dr Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), aka drug lord Mr Big, who plans to flood the US with heroin and create millions of new addicts/customers.
Top stunt: Bond escaping an island by jumping on the backs of crocodiles.
First appearance: Bond in a safari jacket.
Memorable for: A spooky voodoo vibe; tapping into the blaxploitation genre; a henchman with a metal claw hand; a comedy US cop; Moore’s eyebrow-raised quipping – though this film is quite dark in places, Moore’s era would become increasingly silly and ready to jump on cinematic bandwagons.

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in the Man With The Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Guy Hamilton
Theme song: The Man with the Golden Gun, performed by Lulu
Main villain: Legendary hitman Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) who wants to pit his skills against the renowned James Bond.
Top stunt: Bond corkscrews a car while leaping a river.
First appearance: Bill Tanner, MI6 chief of staff (who’ll be played by various actors in coming films)
Memorable for: Not being called The Man With Three Nipples (Scaramanga’s other claim to infamy); a theme song perfect for the innuendo of the Moore years (“He has a powerful weapon”); return of the comedy US cop; martial arts action; Nick Nack, Scaramanga’s dwarf manservant.

James Bond movies in order: Curt Jürgens and Roger Moore as Jaws and James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Theme song: Nobody Does it Better, performed by Carly Simon
Main villain: Shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curt Jürgens) who wants to drown humanity and create a new world under the sea.
Top stunt: Bond skiing off a cliff, then halting his fall with a Union Jack-emblazoned parachute.
First appearance: Metal-toothed henchman Jaws
Memorable for: A magnificent villain’s lair that looks like a giant metal octopus rising out of the sea; a ship that opens at the front to swallow other ships; the innuendo-drenched last line: “Keeping the British end up, sir.”

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in Moonraker

Moonraker (1979)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Theme song: Moonraker, performed by Shirley Bassey
Main villain: Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), whose plan is the same as Karl Stromberg’s only set in space
Top stunt: Bond and Jaws fight on top of a cable car.
Memorable for: Bond in space; Jaws getting a girlfriend; being rushed into production after the success of Star Wars (For Your Eyes Only was supposed to be next); a gondola that turns into hovercraft; a pigeon doing a double take.

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: John Glen
Theme song: For Your Eyes Only, performed by Sheena Easton
Main villain: Smuggler Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover), who’s selling British military secrets to the KGB.
Top stunt: The pre-credit sequence with Bond clinging to a helicopter being remotely controlled by (possibly) Blofeld
Memorable for: Not much, but there’s a lot of water-based action, luxury yachts, and some ice hockey.

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in Octopussy

Octopussy (1983)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: John Glen
Theme song: All Time High, performed by Rita Coolidge
Main villain: Exiled Afghan prince and backgammon cheat Kamal Khan (Louis Jordan) plans to blow up a German military base using a travelling circus as cover.
Top stunt: Bond leaping from a galloping horse onto a plane, then fighting the villain’s henchman outside the aircraft when it takes flight.
First appearance: Robert Brown as M
Memorable for: Bond as a clown; a fake horse’s arse hiding a mini jet; tennis player Vijay Amritraj as Bond’s tennis racket-welding ally in India.

James Bond movies in order: Roger Moore as James Bond in A View A Kill

A View to a Kill (1985)

Bond: Roger Moore
Director: John Glen
Theme song: A View to a Kill, performed by Duran Duran
Main villain: Hi-tech industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), who plans to destroy Silicon Valley with an earthquake.
Top stunt: Bond chases henchwoman May Day up the Eiffel Tower.
Memorable for: Singer Grace Jones as Mayday; none of Moore’s stunt doubles looking like him; a villain with an airship; Bond driving a fire engine during a car chase; a fight on the suspension struts of the Golden Gate Bridge.

James Bond movies in order: Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights

The Living Daylights (1987)

Bond: Timothy Dalton
Director: John Glen
Theme song: The Living Daylights, performed by A-ha
Main villain: Double-crossing Soviet General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) and arms dealer Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker) stir up the cold war to their own advantage.
Top stunt: Bond and Bond girl Maryam d’Abo escaping baddies using a cello case as a sledge.
First appearance: Caroline Bliss as Moneypenny.
Memorable for: Being an odd (but interesting) hybrid of Moore quippery and the more hard-nosed Bond to come; an excellent pre-credit action scene set on the Rock of Gibraltar; Bond fighting blond henchman Necros while hanging out of the back of a plane.

James Bond movies in order: Helicopters in License To Kill

Licence to Kill (1989)

Bond: Timothy Dalton
Director: John Glen
Theme song: Licence to Kill, performed by Gladys Knight
Main villain: Drug baron Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), who doesn’t have an evil scheme, exactly, he just annoys Bond.
Top stunt: A car chase along mountainous roads, only with bloody great tankers instead of cars.
Memorable for: Being one of the bleakest Bonds; Felix Leiter is mutilated by a shark; his wife killed on their wedding day; M demands Bond’s resignation when he goes off on a revenge mission; a very icky death when a man explodes in a decompression tank; it’s good, but is it Bond?

James Bond movies in order: Piers Brosnan and Sean Bean as Bond and Alec in Goldeneye

GoldenEye (1995)

Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Director: Martin Campbell
Theme song: GoldenEye, performed by Tina Turner
Main villain: Alec Trevelyan, 006 (Sean Bean), a former Double-O agent who faked his own death, founded a criminal organisation and plans to attack Britain using a hijacked Soviet space weapon.
Top stunt: Bond bungee-jumps down a colossal dam wall.
First appearance: Judi Dench as M; Samantha Bond as Moneypenny
Memorable for: Ushering in a Brosnan era of blockbuster stunts and high concept gadgets; a tank chase: a white-knuckle finale fight on the gantry of a ginormous satellite dish (that rises from a lake).

James Bond movies in order: Piers Brosnan as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Theme song: Tomorrow Never Dies, performed by Sheryl Crow
Main villain: Media magnate Elliot Carver (Jonathan Price) who attempts to ignite a war between the UK and China to boost his TV ratings.
Top stunt: Bond on a BMW motorbike chased by a helicopter through the narrow streets of Ho Chi Minh City, ending with an uncomfortably close shave with the ’copter’s blades.
Memorable for: Bond remotely controlling a BMW 750i using his mobile phone; Michelle Yeoh as a truly kick-ass Bond girl, Wai Lin; Carver’s badass stealth boat.

James Bond movies in order: Piers Brosnan as James Bond in The World Is Not Enough

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Director: Michael Apted
Theme song: The World is Not Enough, performed by Garbage
Main villain: Russian terrorist Victor ‘Renard’ Zokas (Robert Carlyle). Once shot in the head by agent 009 under orders from M, he survived but the bullet remains lodged in his brain, slowly killing him, but making him impervious to pain. He holds a bit of a grudge about this, so he kidnaps M.
Top stunt: A speedboat chase on the Thames showing off the newly built Millennium Dome.
First appearance: John Cleese as R (who becomes Q in the next film)
Memorable for: A helicopter causing carnage with a massive, dangling buzzsaw thing; Denise Richards as Christmas Jones.

James Bond movies in order: Pierce Brosnan James Bond in Die Another Day

Die Another Day (2002)

Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Director: Lee Tamahori
Theme song: Die Another Day, performed by Madonna
Main villain: Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), a North Korean military colonel apparently killed by Bond, but who underwent DNA replacement therapy to reimagine himself as a European businessman whose company builds a weapon of mass laser destruction.
Top stunt: A car chase on ice.
Memorable for: After a genuinely unsettling first act during which Bond gets tortured, the film goes bonkers – mass laser death from space; Bond fencing with Madonna; an invisible car; Bond kite-surfing a tsunami; Halle Berry as Jinx.

James Bond movies in order: Daniel Craig as James Bond In Casino Royale

Casino Royale (2006)

Bond: Daniel Craig
Director: Martin Campbell
Theme song: You Know My Name, performed by Chris Cornell
Main villain: Banker, terrorist finacier, and poker player extraordinaire Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) is seriously annoyed when Bond keeps ruining his schemes.
Top stunt: The vertigo-inducing parkour fight on a crane (with Bond chasing a bomber played by Sébastien Foucan, often cited as the creator of Parkour).
Memorable for: Boldly rebooting the franchise with a Bond origin story; introducing Craig as the gnarliest Bond yet; Bond naked and tortured by Chiffre; lots of poker; a poisoned Bond jump-starting his heart; Eva Green as Vesper Lynd.

James Bond movies in order: Daniel Craig as James Bond in Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Bond: Daniel Craig
Director: Marc Forster
Theme song: Another Way to Die, performed by Jack White & Alicia Keys
Main villain: ‘Green’ industrialist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a member of criminal organisation Quantum, with less than humanitarian designs on a patch of land in Bolivia.
Top stunt: An old-fashioned aeroplane dogfight with a Bond twist when 007 forces the pursuing plane into a deadly game of chicken with a canyon wall.
First appearance: Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, MI6 chief of staff.
Memorable for: The opening car chase which finishes with Bond opening the boot to reveal he has the man responsible for Vesper Lynd’s death tied up in there; a chase across the slidey, slate rooftops of Sienna.

James Bond movie in order: Daniel Craig as James Bond and Judi Dench as M in Skyfall

Skyfall (2012)

Bond: Daniel Craig
Director: Sam Mendes
Theme song: Skyfall, performed by Adele
Main villain: Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), a former MI6 agent turned cyber terrorist with a grudge against M and a long game revenge scheme.
Top stunt: Bond driving a digger along a moving freight train.
First appearance: Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory (who becomes the new M); Ben Wishaw as Q; Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny
Memorable for: Lots of nods to previous Bond films (it was the 50th anniversary film); the death of M; a bold, exciting reinvention of Moneypenny; and a breathtaking action sequence in the London tube system.

James Bond movies in order: Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre

Spectre (2015)

Bond: Daniel Craig
Director: Sam Mendes
Theme song: Writing’s on the Wall, performed by Sam Smith
Main villain: SPECTRE boss Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) – this time revealed to be Bond’s long-lost foster brother (it’s a long story) – hijacks a global surveillance system in order to target secret agents.
Top stunt: Bond chases a car in a rapidly disintegrating plane.
Memorable for: Opening with a four-minute tracking shot following Bond across the rooftops of Mexico City on the Day of the Dead; Judi Dench’s M giving Bond a mission from beyond the grave.

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No Time to Die (2021)

Bond: Daniel Craig
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Theme song: No Time to Die, performed by Billie Eilish
Main villain: The devious Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who plans on using a pre-programmed nanobot virus to kill millions for poorly defined reasons.
Top stunt: Bond narrowly avoiding being hit by a car while lost in the woods.
Memorable for: Killing James Bond at the end and introducing a female 007 agent.

Alt-Bonds

There have been two unofficial Bond detective movies. The first was Casino Royale (1967), a spy film spoof starring David Niven as the ‘original’ Bond, and Peter Sellers as one of several pretend Bonds.

Like spoofs? Check out our best comedy movies here

Then there was Never Say Never Again (1983), a loose remake of Thunderball, in which Connery returns to the role, with the film acknowledging his advancing years. Produced by Kevin McClory, a producer on Thunderball who had managed to maintain the screen rights to that novel after a long legal battle, the film is an interesting curio but isn’t particularly memorable beyond that.

If you like Bond, you’ll love our list of the best thriller movies or, if you need a break from all the explosions, check out our best animated movies guide. Don’t forget to check out all the new movies coming out in 2023, too.