10 Best James Bond Movies Of All Time

10. The Spy Who Loved Me

The Spy Who Loved Me
Eon

The Spy Who Loved Me is basically the only Bond film you need to see to understand the Austin Powers movies. All the components that are so crucial to getting the Powers in-jokes are there: the OTT (and obviously staged) action, the clumsy, arch protagonist, the bawdy humour, the relentless snogging and, perhaps most importantly of all, the winking one-liners.

In The Spy Who Loved Me, as in Austin Powers, women fall instantly in love with the hero no matter how he's wronged them, the villains are cartoonishly evil, the secret lairs are bafflingly over-sized and the double entendres are one step away from basically doubling as porn dialogue. The Spy Who Loved Me was, essentially, the best parody of a Bond film until Mike Myers came along.

It's one of those Bond films, then, that lives or dies on the viewer's tolerance to 'Bond-ness'. To some, like TV's Alan Partridge, the fact that The Spy Who Loved Me so embraces the ridiculousness of Bond and runs with it is what makes it such a classic entry.

Contributor
Contributor

Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1