10 Best James Bond Movies Of All Time

3. GoldenEye

Looking back, GoldenEye is a Bond movie with surprising depth - it's the first Bond movie set after the Cold War's end, and the first to truly consider whether Bond is a man out of time. This would later be explored further in Skyfall, but GoldenEye manages to find the sweet spot between thoughtful self-analysis and "screw it, how about some superlative action sequences?".

GoldenEye's beats are some of the best, with the tank chase, the explosive finale and that opening scene - perhaps Bond's best ever - all serving as series highlights. Director Martin Campbell also shows off an eye for location, with post-Soviet Russia a cruel concrete ruin of the former USSR and Cuba a lush, eerie paradise; his handling of actors, too, is impeccable (Izabella Scorupco's Bond girl and Famke Janssen's villain feel unique, as opposed to being just types).

Throw in an evocative, brassy industrial score, and some emotional weight in the form of Sean Bean's former 00 agent turned against Bond, and you have easily the best 007 outing of the Brosnan era. None of Brosnan's subsequent Bond movies even came close, which seems like a waste of an actor so well-suited to the part, but at least there'll always be this stonking effort to look back on.