10 Best James Bond Movies Of All Time
1. From Russia With Love
Before Goldfinger set the template for what everyone expected the James Bond movie to be, 007 was still finding his feet. And if the franchise had followed the example of From Russia With Love instead, audiences would have been looking a different kind of movie altogether, one of leanness, intelligence and stark, uncluttered cool.
Arguably the finest Bond - that'd be Connery - gives arguably his finest Bond performance, while his nemesis is probably the greatest the Brit spy has ever faced: Robert Shaw's sociopathic Soviet agent, Red Grant. Their duel is rare - aboard a train carrying them from Istanbul to Trieste, Grant tentatively stalks Bond then sits him down to dinner, where each try to crack the other's facade before they lock into the series' single greatest fight scene.
From Russia With Love is almost the antithesis of Bond: it's low on gadgets, high on brutality (Bond beating a woman for information here seems less like misogyny, more like a product of Bond's success-by-any-means philosophy) and it centres on a low-key plot that actually forces the viewer to engage. It may not often feel like 'true Bond', but it's a truly great movie all the same.
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