50 Greatest James Bond Moments Of All Time

17. For Your Eyes Only: Mountain Climb

The Spy Who Loved Me
MGM/UA

The still-underrated For Your Eyes Only is full of fantastic action sequences, but it saves the best for last with Bond's climb up the mountain to reach main villain Aristotle Kristiatos' lair. He rope climbs up the mountain... all while an enemy henchman is trying to destroy his ropes.

The result is a nerve-shredding, mercilessly tense sequence that, thanks to excellent pacing, only gets more and more heart-in-mouth as it goes along. Ultimately, Bond only just manages to get up the cliff alive and once he finally reaches the summit, you'll practically collapse with relief.

A particularly neat moment is when, after Bond's equipment is partly destroyed, he improvises a prusik knot, using his shoelaces, in order to hoist himself back up. This is one of the franchise's best examples of Bond's quick-thinking ingenuity.

Contributor

Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.