A few years ago, I undertook the task of watching and ranking all of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore Bond movies. Here are the countdown results for the Connery Bond:
6. You Only Live Twice. Connery was mailing it in on this one, and the whole plot was rather ridiculous and goofy. The quality of this film put it on par with a mid-level Moore offering. I think they may also have tried too hard to make Japan work as an exotic Bond location.
5. Diamonds Are Forever. Not as outlandish as having the technology to capture space capsules (You Only Live Twice), but still…lasering everything from space in the early 70’s was a bit outlandish. Connery was showing a bit of age here too — he was noticeably thicker and maybe even a bit grayer? Not a bad movie though…for its time.
4. From Russia With Love. I like Robert Shaw, and a portion of it takes place on a train through Eastern Europe, which is kind of cool. The story is decent, and the cold war intrigue as a backdrop for SPECTRE was alright, although I’m not a fan of movies that focus so much on them…except for one.
3. Dr. No. A pretty good start for the Bond franchise, and this one had a good story with good intrigue. Probably the most Jonny Quest-like of the franchise (I mean, c’mon — a fire-breathing dragon in a swamp? Just watch the Jonny Quest intro to see how well that would have fit in there). In reality though, most of the Connery Bond movies were beautiful inspirations for Jonny Quest.
2. Goldfinger. A great plot, and Mr. Goldfinger was one of the best Bond villains. And of course, the greatest Bond villain side-kick of all time in Oddjob. Dude had a hat that could cut off your head!
1. Thunderball. By far the greatest Bond movie of all time. The franchise had hit its stride by this one. Goldfinger was a pretty good warmup, and the franchise went downhill steeply after this (notice that the two (Connery films) that followed are my lowest ranked). This movie was well-polished and the Bond mystique was in full force. The story was great, the villain was great, and the location was great. The movie was so good that even the background scenery of the hydrofoil fight jumping all over the place, repeating itself, and looking like you were boating right over the top of several small islands at the end couldn’t ruin it. In fact, this movie was so good that Sean Connery did it twice (Never Say Never Again).