The James Bond film franchise is one of the most beloved and successful in cinematic history, spanning over sixty years and multiple stars, from Daniel Craig to the first man to officially don the tux – Sir Sean Connery.
Based on the novels about fictional British agent 007, created by Sir Ian Fleming, Bond movies have delivered us memorable moments, brilliant baddies and iconic gadgets over the decades, alongside classic one-liners and a martini or two.
Let’s not forget either, the glamour of the Bond girl, from Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder to Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, with Vesper Lynd, puss* Galore and many more along the way, with several all to happy to put Bond in his place.
However, with the passage of time, it’s no secret that some of these spy capers really haven’t aged well, with outdated views and insensitive language, and some weren’t even that good to begin with.
But which ones really are rather dreadful? And we’ll remove the 1967 parody Casino Royale from proceedings, starring David Niven, to focus on the official Bond movies.
We’re also judging by the ratings on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, which has cast a wide note over the years to capture reviews from its accredited critics and publications.
So without further ado, here are the worst James Bond films in order of how badly rated they are.
5. Die Another Day (2002)
It must be said that all actors who’ve played James Bond have made a weak Bond film, but Craig and Sir Sean just escape the net of the bottom five with their worst offerings, 2015’s Spectre and 1981’s Diamonds Are Forever, respectively.
Pierce Brosnan is not that lucky with his final outing as Bond ranking as his second worst, on a pretty insipid (and rotten) 55%.
With Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike and – yes – Madonna joining him for this movie mission, Bond is sent to investigate the connection between a North Korean terrorist and a diamond mogul, who is funding the development of an international space weapon.
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Die Another Day is most remembered for Madge’s aggressive fencing scene, the naff invisible car and the ridiculous gene therapy tech plot that allows Colonel Tan-Sun Moon and entrepreneur Gustav Graves to be the same person.
Nevertheless, it became the highest-grossing James Bond film at the time and is also still fondly remembered for Berry’s NSA Agent Jinx – if little else from the bland plot.
4. The World is Not Enough (1999)
Unfortunately, despite the high point of 1994’s GoldenEye, Brosnan’s penultimate film as Bond was also not a resounding critical success.
This time, our titular operative uncovers a nuclear plot while protecting an oil heiress (Sophie Marceau’s Elektra King) from her former kidnapper, a former KGB agent-turned-international terrorist who can’t feel pain (naturally), played by Robert Carlyle.
The World is Not Enough was also the first 007 film in the franchise to win a Razzie, which Denise Richards was awarded for her portrayal of nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones, with her and Brosnan also nominated for worst onscreen couple.
However, despite a rating of 51% – making it Brosnan’s worst – it still pulled in a strong box office performance of $361.8million (£284.4m), only surpassed by Die Another Day three years later.
3. Octopuss* (1983)
Now we come to the first of Sir Roger Moore’s entries as Bond, which was his sixth out of seven as 007 between 1973 and 1985.
Despite being marketed as ‘James Bond’s all time high’, few fans would agree with this statement as a fake Fabergé egg recovered from the body of a fellow agent leads the agent to uncover a jewel smuggling operation led by the mysterious Octopuss*, and a plot to blow up a NATO air base.
As well as Steven Berkoff’s baddie General Orlov being a strongly criticised part of the film, many have also struggled with the rather embarrassing ‘comedic’ scenes for Bond which see the late Sir Roger dressed up in both a clown outfit and a gorilla costume.
It’s rated as a pretty poor 42%, with the Radio Times calling it ‘the most frivolous in the series to date’.
2. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Man with the Golden Gun was Sir Roger’s second film as 007 and, coincidentally, is the other film – alongside Octopuss* – in which Maud Adams played a Bond girl, the only actress to do it twice as different characters.
Loosely based on Fleming’s posthumous novel of the same name, this movie sees Bond targeted by the world’s most expensive assassin, while he attempts to recover sensitive solar cell technology that is being sold to the highest bidder.
Despite boasting a cast including (widely praised) Sir Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, it was met with mixed reviews and widely considered the lowest point for the franchise so far, as movie number nine overall.
Time Out criticised Sir Roger’s performance here as ‘blandness personified’, while Film4 observed on its website: ‘It is proof that exotic locations, girls, one-liners and a couple of car chases don’t necessarily add up to a decent Bond film.’
It’s also rated at 42%, but with three more reviews accounting for that score than that of Octopuss*, so it’s here at number two.
1. A View to a Kill (1985)
Here we are, at what has been officially ranked the nadir of the James Bond canon: A View to a Kill.
Poor Sir Roger has not had a good time of it in the rankings, with this movie on just 37% – a real shame for his final film with a licence to kill, aged 57 (which was part of the problem).
This is despite it starring Christopher Walken and introducing us to the force that is Grace Jones as May Day.
In A View to a Kill, the recovery of a microchip from the body of a fellow British secret agent (sounding familiar?) leads James Bond to a mad industrialist scheming to cause massive destruction.
The critics’ consensus was that it was ‘absurd even by Bond standards’ and ‘weighted down by campy jokes and a noticeable lack of energy’.
Despite this, it still scored the biggest-ever opening for a Bond film at the time and raked in a healthy total at the box office.
However, Sir Roger distanced himself from the film too, calling it his least favourite.
‘I was horrified on the last Bond I did,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘Whole slews of sequences where Christopher Walken was machine-gunning hundreds of people. I said, “That wasn’t Bond, those weren’t Bond films.” It stopped being what they were all about. You didn’t dwell on the blood and the brains spewing all over the place.’
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