All 6 James Bond Actors Ranked
Six decades. Six actors. But how good are they compared to one another?
James Bond is the longest-running film franchise in the history of cinema, spanning fifty-eight years and twenty-four films. As the entire series revolves around one character, it follows that the role has to be recast regularly.
So far, six actors have played Agent 007 in official movies. And naturally, there are many similarities and many differences between all of the actors. They all conformed to some set traditions, but all of them brought something or other fresh and original to the character.
Some have spent years on end playing the character, while others have played the character for a much shorter span of time. Some carried a passion for the character, while others were reluctant to play him. Some were popular with audiences while others were not as popular.
Each Bond was a product of his era. Naturally, the Bond of 1960s would be very different to the Bond of the 21st century, given all of the historical and cultural changes in that time. They are all good in their own ways, but some more so than others, so this is the ranking of all six James Bond actors.
For this list only the actors from the official Eon Productions series of Bond films will be taken into account, so Barry Nelson, who played Bond in the 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale, and David Niven, who played Bond in the 1967 spoof of Casino Royale, will not be listed here.
6. George Lazenby
1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service was, in many aspects, and oddity for the James Bond franchise. For one, it was the first film in which Bond was not played by Sean Connery. It was also ahead of its time for the complexity of its plot and characterisation, and its advanced action sequences which went unmatched by another Bond film until 1987's The Living Daylights. Most notably, it was the first and last time George Lazenby played the character of Bond.
Fans are still debating whether Lazenby was the best Bond or the worst, but most can agree that he stands out in the list of Bond actors. Not only did he only portray Agent 007 for only one film, not only was he the only non-Brit ever to play the secret agent, but he also simply didn't look or feel the part.
Over five decades, fans have warmed considerably to Lazenby's incarnation of the character, even if he was negatively received in 1969 for not being Sean Connery.
There is no denying that George Lazenby's Bond was ahead of his time, bringing vulnerability and depth of the kind that wouldn't be popular in 007 until 2006's Casino Royale. Although a fair number of fans see Lazenby as the definitive Bond, he is too much of an oddity in the franchise's history to earn a place higher up in the list.