10 Most Shocking James Bond Movie Moments
8. Goodbye, M
In Skyfall, Bond’s boss was killed off rather beautifully after seven outings. She was wounded in battle with the movie’s main villain, Silva (Javier Bardem) and later died of the injury.
This moment should have been truly powerful and probably was to those who didn’t know it was coming. After all, the worst that had ever happened to M before, no matter who was playing her/him, was being captured for a brief time in The World Is Not Enough.
Unfortunately, news was leaked months earlier that it would be Dench’s last time in a Bond movie, and one major US newspaper had even let slip that the character was being killed off in Skyfall. Rampant spoilers are one of the downsides of the modern age of instantly available information. If not for that leak, this moment would have ranked higher on the list.
The first three films in the rebooted series starring Daniel Craig all seemed to be gradually setting up the character’s becoming the fully formed, more experienced Bond we knew from the previous 20 instalments. The death of Dench’s M was the final cutting of the umbilical cord as the traditional Bond pieces (a male M, Moneypenny, and Q) were put onto the chessboard for future films.