Ranking Every James Bond Opening Scene From Worst To Best

The James Bond series his a cultural phenomenon unlike any other. An immediate success with Dr No, the franchise churned into action remarkably quickly with each release proving more successful than the last.

Although each film followed the same basic formula they continued to be hits, and the producers quickly learned a valuable lesson; if it ain't broken, don't fix it. That delighted fans and created a model so precise you could almost set your watch by it.

There are many crucial aspects of the Bond formula; the larger than life villain, the M debriefing scene, the beautiful Bond girls... And for many, the most important is the opening sequence.

Every James Bond movie other than Dr. No begins with a cold open, and this list ranks all official EON openings (sorry Never Say Never Again fans, it's not canon). These opening scenes can directly set up the main plot of their film, or act as independent segments intended to warm you into the atmosphere.

The quality of these openings vary from film to film, and fans of the series have had to suffer through some truly miserable openings over the years. But when an Bond cold open is successful, it can make for an incredible movie moment.

The opening scene of A View to a Kill is atrocious.

It takes everything awful about the Roger Moore era and throws it into one ridiculous scene. Awkward comedy? Check. Absurd and goofy Q gadget? One glacier submarine coming right up! A Bond girl at least 25 years younger than Moore? Of course.

But that is merely the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). As Bond skis and - sigh - snowboards away from anonymous Soviet henchmen after collecting a stereotypical microchip macguffin, audiences are gifted with the most inappropriate song choice in the history of 007: "California Girls". Because the second anyone hears the words James Bond they obviously think of the Beach Boys, right?

A View To A Kill's cold open is the perfect example of the Moore films prioritizing humor over thrills. The cheeky one-liners and sight gags were a staple of Moore's era, but after six films the schtick had grown dreadfully trite. Thankfully, the series returned to its more serious roots after this film with Timothy Dalton's debut, The Living Daylights.