James Bond: Every Roger Moore Movie Ranked Worst To Best

After the literal globe-trotting antics of Moonraker weren’t especially well-received, the producers decided it was time to bring Bond back down to Earth, both literally and stylistically. Indeed, the cold war story of For Your Eyes Only makes an effort to return the franchise to its spy-focused, espionage-based literary roots.

So eager were the producers to stray from the franchise’s gradually escalating scale of fantasy and absurdity, that the plot finds Bond racing for control of an ATAC tracking device against a slippery smuggler so clearly low-key in his villainy as to be bland.

Even so, the film suffers somewhat from a tonal crisis: despite its low-key, more realistic plot, it still includes some of the silliest moments of the franchise, including the bizarrely cartoonish disposal of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and a parrot squawking “give us a kiss” to a Margaret Thatcher impersonator.

Of course, Sir Roger Moore’s now grizzled yet unwaveringly suave performance bolsters the film, and he’s equally comfortable using witty barbs to fend off the advances of underage figure-skaters as he is delivering vengeful executions.

Teaming 007 with one of the stronger Bond girls of the franchise in Melina Havelock as well as the scene-stealing Columbo, For Your Eyes Only features some of the most memorable sequences in a franchise ever more confident in its stunt-work and action with every passing film. As a whole, it’s one of Moore’s very best.

Best Moore Moment: “You left this with Ferraro, I believe,” says Bond, before kicking the murderous Locque’s car off a cliff, to his doom. Sir Roger himself may have perceived this scene as too dark for his Bond, but his version of the character always was disarmingly brutal where his enemies were concerned, despite his charm.