Military bases under dormant volcanoes, Blofeld being Bond's jealous step brother, Jamaicans disguised as African American drug dealers, space cities, voodoo priests, Blofeld clones, undersea cities, metal teeth villains, psychotic supersoldier villains, in case you haven't realised the Bond films have never avoided being ridiculous.

And the worst Bond film would be quantum of solace.

My bottom three:-
The World is Not Enough
Licence to Kill
Quantum of Solace

Die Another Day not even close. Quite common for fans of Daniel Craig's "Bond" films to criticize this one but the reality is that daft CGI aside it's not bad, in fact the first half is up there with some of the best.

Very successful at the time as well - biggest Box Office for a Bond film at time of release.

@Billions I am not going to defend the back catalog of Bond films. Most of it is pretty woeful.

For all their faults most of the Bond films have at least some redeeming qualities. That might be Connery's masculine style, or Dalton's troubled persona or the beautiful cars of the 60s. In the 60s and 70s, even into the 80s, exotic locations were still new and interesting to most people. It was pure escapism. Put simply, what worked, and yes, a lot of it is ridiculous, in the 60s thru 90s, doesn't work now and didn't work in 2002 either.

EON admitted they got it wrong with Die Another Day- that they misread what audiences wanted. So that is, figuratively speaking, straight from the horse's mouth. Google it if you are doubtful. I am not a lone dissenter on this. The critical consensus appears to be that EON thought the franchise was slipping and massively over corrected. The result is a film that not only plagiarises its own catalog but seems to want to be more like a superhero movie. The result is garbage.

You're entitled to your opinion re Quantum of Solace, but the fact is that even after being adjusted for inflation the reboot movies are far and away more successful. That doesn't by itself equate to quality, but the removal of stupid gadgets and bonkers storylines and villains, the stuff that reached its nadir in Die Another Day, goes a long way to improving the franchise.

The cars were more beautiful in more recent Bond films, and no much of it isn't "woeful" you just aren't a fan.

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

My bottom three:-
The World is Not Enough
Licence to Kill
Quantum of Solace

Die Another Day not even close. Quite common for fans of Daniel Craig's "Bond" films to criticize this one but the reality is that daft CGI aside it's not bad, in fact the first half is up there with some of the best.

Very successful at the time as well - biggest Box Office for a Bond film at time of release.

There's more to making a successful movie than just box office. By the time of this release, blockbuster films like Bond had become orders of magnitude more expensive to make than in Connery or Moore's time. Sure Die Another Day had a decent box office. It also cost twice as much to make as the previous entry, according to Wikipedia. While EON probably made a decent profit on this film it was a much smaller return than they expected and needed.

I don't know how old you were when this movie was released but the franchise was put on ice after it. Side projects got canned. There was speculation the franchise had run its course and might never return. It was very nearly the movie that broke the franchise. If you like the movie, that's ok too. But some consideration of why the franchise had to be rebooted means looking at what went wrong with the final entry of the 'old' Bond.

If those involved with Die Another Day were happy with the result, both creatively and financially, they would have turned out another just like it in short order. Instead they delayed, and recast and rebooted the whole thing.

Ha, it's funny that here you say there's more to it than Box Office yet above in another post used adjusted Box Office to defend QoS! But that's cool, everyone's going to use figures as they can to defend their own preferences.

However it's pretty hard to knock DAD in terms of box office whatever way you look at it. This article here is a pretty interesting read:- https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/04/18/all-26-james-bond-films-ranked-at-the-box-office/#78e72e771804 So whatever way you cut it DAD was not a failure at the box office. Yes as I said before the CGI was derided - and pretty much anti-Bond compared with the great real stunts on the Moore films of the 70s / 80s but it's post Craig revisionism to call it a disappointment.

This thread is interesting though as it reminded me of my own look at the figures a while back:- https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/660-thunderball/discuss/58e7d8bbc3a36872af04e385?language=en-US

I think I'll see if I can improve this model further to account for cinema ticket price inflation which I believe has increased way above inflation.

I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way that any movie with Halle Berry in a bikini is the worst James Bond movie, period. I have a rule, to pilfer Roger Ebert's rule regarding Harry Dean Stanton and M. Emmett Walsh, that "no movie with Halle Berry in any form of undress can be altogether bad." (I haven't seen Catwoman, and I never will, so I'm going to cling to my assertion.)

I'd actually rank Tomorrow Never Dies as my least-favorite, but not a bad, Bond only because I can't remember a single thing about it. It's utterly forgettable and for me that seals the deal. (TWINE is pretty bad but at least we have stolen nukes, Denise Richards as a -- I can't keep a straight face -- nuclear scientist, and an outstanding Sophie Marceau as an unexpected villainess.)

@Billions said: And the worst Bond film would be quantum of solace.

ignorance is bliss but reality is maturity. quantum of solace beats a view to kill for your eyes only and spectre any given day, user hosting razzie awards

Die Another Day is a masterpiece when compared to the cinematic excrement that is Never Say Never Again & Quantum of Solace.

@suburbandog said:

@Billions said: And the worst Bond film would be quantum of solace.

ignorance is bliss but reality is maturity. quantum of solace beats a view to kill for your eyes only and spectre any given day, user hosting razzie awards

Even the Austin Powers movies were better than quantum of solace. Christopher Walken in view to a kill is why you need to think before replying.

@The Midi-chlorian Count I wasn't defending QOS as such. Nor was I saying box office somehow settled any argument. I even said so straight after the sentence you reference: 'That doesn't by itself equate to quality...'.

To be clear to some of the other posters, this isn't about you not being able to like whatever you please. But posting on a forum simply which movie you prefer without explanation isn't qualitatively different from people posting their lunch orders.

I enjoyed Never Say Never Again because I think it got the balance right between action and self parody at a time when that mix was still worth something. It also fixed the worst parts of Thunderball imo. I also think Connery revisiting the part, and free of EON's manufacturing plan, finally got to give Bond a personality. It's ok to think otherwise.

I also think unbalance threw the Dalton movies off kilter. They were probably moving in the right direction with a grittier Bond as was proved right with the rebooted movies, but it's like someone looked at the script for Licence to Kill, and said 'Where are the bizarre ways of killing people? Why isn't there a preposterous over sized set we can blow up at the end? Can we have a ridiculous villain who behaves like a 12 year old? and so on. The result was, I think, two movies that had audiences wanting a modern movie groaning and saying FFS. On the other hand it had those wanting the old Bond cheese lamenting the grim tone. The result was losing both audiences' attention.

Ftr, Moore, easily the most camp Bond, thought Die Another Day went too far over the top and was later full of praise for the Craig Bond. So again, that's straight from the horse's mouth.

I mean, c'mon, an invisible car??? That would be stupid just as a gag prop, but in Die Another Day it is actually an important part of the story.

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

I think I'll see if I can improve this model further to account for cinema ticket price inflation which I believe has increased way above inflation.

So this is interesting:-
https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/

"The average ticket price in 1969 was $1.42. Adjusted for inflation, that ticket would cost $10.14 in 2019 dollars."

However the average price listed for 2019 is $9.16. So in fact it looks like my assumption was wrong and if anything ticket prices have stayed slightly below inflation. Therefore I think my previous list still gives a fair true "bums on seats" reflection:-

1. Thunderball $2,198,201,223
   
2. Goldfinger $2,017,488,994
   
3. You Only Live Twice $1,572,874,535
4. Live and Let Die $1,518,838,537
   
5. From Russia with Love $1,302,797,359
6. Diamonds Are Forever $1,241,565,392
7. The Spy Who Loved Me $1,187,752,827
8. Skyfall $1,145,522,895
9. Moonraker $1,086,850,049
10. Dr. No $1,018,556,960
11. On HM's Secret Service $1,009,319,819
12. Spectre $880,669,186
13. Man with the Golden Gun $809,816,584
14. For Your Eyes Only $778,504,034
15. Casino Royale $741,890,577
16. Goldeneye $674,246,020
17. Quantum of Solace $673,019,991
18. Octopussy $658,690,648
19. Die Another Day $631,993,795
20. The World is Not Enough $593,375,000
21. Tomorrow Never Dies $593,288,848
22. The Living Daylights $550,081,015
23. A View to a Kill $479,893,730
24. Licence to Kill $397,820,654

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

My bottom three:-
The World is Not Enough
Licence to Kill
Quantum of Solace

Die Another Day not even close. Quite common for fans of Daniel Craig's "Bond" films to criticize this one but the reality is that daft CGI aside it's not bad, in fact the first half is up there with some of the best.

Very successful at the time as well - biggest Box Office for a Bond film at time of release.

Yeah, I did quite like the first half of Die Another Day back when it came out. The 2nd half did get very silly. And a big reason for that was the CGI and the finale felt like Power Rangers. A film of two halfs.

Licence to Kill I do think is the worst Bond film. I appreciate what it was trying to do but it was just an absolute mess. Though I do remember really enjoying The Living Daylights.

I don't see TWINE and QOS as the worst, but they're far from the best.

@AlienFanatic said:

I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way that any movie with Halle Berry in a bikini is the worst James Bond movie, period. I have a rule, to pilfer Roger Ebert's rule regarding Harry Dean Stanton and M. Emmett Walsh, that "no movie with Halle Berry in any form of undress can be altogether bad." (I haven't seen Catwoman, and I never will, so I'm going to cling to my assertion.)

I'd actually rank Tomorrow Never Dies as my least-favorite, but not a bad, Bond only because I can't remember a single thing about it. It's utterly forgettable and for me that seals the deal. (TWINE is pretty bad but at least we have stolen nukes, Denise Richards as a -- I can't keep a straight face -- nuclear scientist, and an outstanding Sophie Marceau as an unexpected villainess.)

How come you have such vivid memories of Halle Berry and Denise Richards yet have no memory of this:-
https://youtu.be/POQbs1Rb45k?t=2m15s

🤔