Here's my top 5 and the reasons I picked them...
1) Goldfinger -- the all-time greatest Bond. After the first two outings (Dr. No and From Russia with Love) this was the one where everything clicked into place and the tone was set for the entire series.
2) You Only Live Twice -- Blofeld! Giant rocket base in a volcano! Another template for future films created! The big villainous base!
3) Goldeneye -- Let's face it: the second everyone saw Pierce Brosnan, everyone just knew he was born to be James Bond. And when his Remington Steele TV contract didn't allow him to step into the role as planned, it only made the pent-up desire to see him in the role even greater -- hence the reason Goldeneye was later such a huge box office smash since everyone finally got what they had been wishing for all along. For once, movie audiences around the world got EXACTLY the actor they wanted to see in the role.
4) The Living Daylights -- Timothy Dalton made a great splash as a younger and more vibrant Bond, which was almost shocking to see onscreen since everyone was sooooo used to Roger Moore, who had clearly gotten too old to continue on any longer (which was painfully obvious in A View To A Kill). Seeing Dalton in the opening sequence of this movie made you slap your head and realize "I forgot what it was like to see Bond throwing a punch where it actually LOOKED like he could throw a punch that would hurt a guy!" Too bad for Dalton that MGM went bankrupt as they were filming LICENSE TO KILL, his second outing, which effectively ended his run in the role prematurely.
5) Casino Royale -- repeat what I said before about having a vigorous guy in the role who actually seemed bad ass enough that his punches would hurt, and then magnify it by 100. I wasn't sure about Daniel Craig at first, but he's done an incredible job making the role all his own. And obviously audiences agree since this film broke every Bond box office record there was.
Honorable mentions go to Live and Let Die for having the rockingest Bond theme song ever, and for Roger Moore taking over the role while HE was young and fit...and to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which would have been the greatest Connery movie of all given the movie's storyline and emotional payoff, if only he had stuck around. While Lazenby was "okay" in it as a replacement Bond, I always felt he was just that -- merely "okay." Of all the Bonds, in my opinion, he was the weakest.
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