Every Bond Movie Pre-Title Scene Ranked - Worst To Best
12. Die Another Day (2002)
If there’s one thing to be taken from the Pierce Brosnan era, it’s the effort to present the pre-title sequence as miniature action movies with scale and ambition. They consistently sought to impress, and Die Another Day’s doesn’t disappoint.
Bond’s mission to covertly infiltrate a North Korean military base is laced with danger and tension from the start. Since 007 opts not to wear a disguise of any kind, his not-so-secret identity is predictably discovered right away. Havoc ensues, and that’s where the fun comes in.
Everything from Bond’s arsenal is thrown into the sequence as he gives chase to the devious Colonel Moon on hovercrafts. It’s a genuinely rip-roaring opening, featuring the best and worst elements of Brosnan’s tenure. From breathtaking stunts to cringeworthy puns (“saved by the bell”, Bond quips as he avoids falling to his death by leaping onto a… bell), it’s all here.
It even ends on a daring and unique note, with 007 actually captured and subjected to torture. Truly an intriguing beginning quite unlike any we’d seen before.
It’s just a shame that the film from that point on proceeded to mirror Colonel Moon’s apparent fate: it completely fell off a cliff.
Best moment: Bond’s commandeering of a hovercraft is almost certainly the first time he’s ever driven such a vehicle, but we all know that if there’s anything James Bond can’t do, it hasn’t been discovered yet.