Every Sam Mendes Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

2. Skyfall

Mendes was certainly a surprising choice to helm a Bond film, and one which paid off spectacularly with one of the iconic spy's most stylish, elegant, and emotionally resonant efforts to date.

Mendes has spoken much about how Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight inspired Skyfall, as is evident throughout not only its operatic, huge-scale visuals, but also its twisty, feeling-over-thought narrative, brought to life in particular by a wonderfully villainous turn from Javier Bardem.

Everyone's fantastic here, though: Daniel Craig nails the weathered, world-weary 007, and Judi Dench gets a tremendously poignant send-off for her M.

Boasting a self-aware tone and some of the series' most technically precise and visually stunning set-pieces - thanks again, Roger Deakins - Skyfall appeared to usher in a new era for Bond, albeit one which was unfortunately walked-back with Spectre.

But we can all agree that Adele's Oscar-winning title track was a timeless banger, right?