The Best of Bond - Now Streaming
No Time to Die is postponed till November, so here are the best Bond movies you can stream right now.
Ah, 2020, where every day is just the worst.
Today should’ve been the release of No Time to Die, the first Bond movie to come out in five years — quite the dry spell for this lifelong Bond fanatic, made even longer and drier by the impact of COVID-19. If you hadn't heard, No Time to Die was pushed all the way back to November, so I thought I’d use my expertise in the field of 007 studies to offer a Top-5 list of Bond movies now available on major streaming platforms (I also decided to narrow it down to one movie per Bond actor for the widest possible range of thrills, chills, and sex appleal). Mix a martini, shaken not stirred, and enjoy …
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger may have been the movie that established the hallmarks of the series, but From Russia with Love is undoubtedly the best of Bond’s initial run of films. It’s got a more traditional, sorta Hitchcockian spy-thriller story, but it’s no less extravagant in its international locale porn and action setpieces. And the extent to which the film revolves entirely around the searing animal magnetism of Sean Connery is almost overwhelming. In his second turn in the role, before he had the weight of the series formula to wrestle with, Connery serves as From Russia With Love’s main special effect, ferociously embodying everything James Bond should be.
You can stream From Russia with Love on Amazon and Hulu.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
The most significant outlier of the franchise, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service might be the only Bond film to have its own cult following. Recommending the film for the A.V. Club this week, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky called On Her Majesty’s “the definitive Bond fan’s Bond film: romantic, unusually invested in Bond as a character, and about as beautiful as these movies would ever get, but still overflowing with those cheesy pleasures innate to the series.” It’s the only Bond film to star Australian model George Lazenby as 007, whose performance, despite the clear limitations of a first-time actor in a major starring role, only gets better with age.
You can stream On Her Majesty’s Secret Service on Amazon and Hulu.
The Spy Who Loved Me
The silly side of Bond never looked better. Roger Moore’s third and arguably most iconic Bond film is pure 70s spy camp — complete with a luxurious underwater villain lair, a gadget-laden sports car that turns into a submarine, and a metal-mouthed henchman literally named Jaws.
Though a far, far cry from Daniel Craig’s brutal, brooding 007, Moore’s Bond is always a charming, delightful hang. And his end of the 007-adventure spectrum was never more beautifully rendered than it is in The Spy Who Loved Me.
You can stream The Spy Who Loved Me on Amazon and Hulu.
The Living Daylights
Timothy Dalton is generally considered the worst Bond. Kind of an unfair characterization, considering he was really the first one to go all-in on evoking the human side of Ian Fleming’s literary 007, single-handedly paving the way for the Daniel Craig era. His two Bond films have their flaws, but they’re worthy experiments long before anyone was interested in an experimental Bond movie.
The Living Daylights in particular maintains all the glamorous Bond trappings (most notably, exotic locales and well-choreographed action scenes) while reviving some of the deeper romance elements of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Shakespearean pathos isn’t something everyone wants from a Bond movie, but I’ll be damned if Dalton doesn’t deliver it.
You can stream The Living Daylights on Amazon and Hulu.
Goldeneye
Another Bond film that only gets better with age, Goldeneye is most commonly remembered as the movie that inspired one of the greatest video games of all time. The actual film deserves much more cred than that.
Goldeneye is the first post-Cold War Bond adventure and a serious contender for best Bond film ever. Gorgeously shot, swiftly paced, beautifully designed, and terribly well acted; it’s a timelessly cool action movie with a singular mood and visual flair that sets it apart from every other film in the series (now 25 films deep). And though Pierce Brosnan’s Bond legacy seems to have diminished over time, his performance in Goldeneye is pretty goddamn tremendous.
