Why Timothy Dalton Is Secretly The Best James Bond

Some twenty years after Timothy Dalton finished up his cruelly short-lived tenure as Bond, the franchise was in dire need of a new look once more. Pierce Brosnan's last outing, Die Another Day, had turned the movies into a laughing stock, and Daniel Craig was brought in to add a stripped-down level of grit to the waning series.

Craig proved to be a perfect fit for the role, bringing Bond into the 21st century with a level of vulnerability, humanity and ruthless proficiency that hadn't been seen since Dalton. With his performance, a new generation of critics and audiences were found drawn back to Dalton's portrayal of the spy, realising just how ahead of his time he was.

For five films, Craig gave the performance of a lifetime, changing the fabric of the series forever with a spy who was as painfully human as he was a mean bastard, and a killer as much as he was a tragic romantic.

But even so, it was Dalton who perfected this image first, his films proving that Craig was stood on the shoulders of a giant throughout his run.

With Craig's tenure finally over and the Bond franchise ready for a new generation of moviegoers, it's worth remembering that without Timothy Dalton, we may never have made it here, and that with his performance he gave fans the greatest iteration of James Bond anyone's ever likely to see.

He was, and forever will be, the best of the best.