It is the longest running franchise in film history. Twenty two films and fifty years later and James Bond hasn’t lost steam either. What is it about Bond that audiences love so much? Is it his style? His cars? The adventurous moments he finds himself in? It could be any one of these things and though not all of the movies are winners, they each have a grand moment that stands out above the rest of the film, the best Bond moments. We’ve decided which ones from each movie are our favorites and you check them out below.
Dr. No (1963)
After some time, Bond has Taro taken away by the ‘Government house.’ He then sets up the house so it appears they’re still there (Taro also happens to have a body shaped pillow that Bond puts under the covers of her bed). He then sits by her bedroom door playing Solitaire with his gun in his lap. A few hours later, Professor Dent comes to the apartment and opens the bedroom door. Assuming that Bond is in the bed, he empties his silenced pistol into the pillows, but when he enters is surprised to see Bond behind him with a gun on him. Needless to say he doesn’t make it out of the room alive and he manages to give up some secret information to Bond in the process.
From Russia With Love (1963)
This is easily one of the most peculiar James Bond films of the entire series. Only being the second film, it stands to reason that they haven’t got their bearings totally straight yet, but some really weird stuff happens in this movie. To start with, Bond doesn’t appear until 18 minutes into the movie and when he does he’s listening to the theme song (‘From Russia With Love’) on the radio. They also play the Bond theme at very mundane moments. Bond checks into his Istanbul hotel room and takes a look around, Bond theme plays. Bond walks around the city, theme music plays. But the wackiest part of the movie is what is the best Bond moment.
What starts out as a simple cat fight over a man in a gypsy camp turns into a wild west shootout when the Soviets bust in. The next five minutes are like a scene from a Zucker Brothers movie. It’s chaos in the gypsy camp and Bond walks around cool as a cucumber. He dodges a throwing knife, karate chops a guy in the throat, pushes a flaming cart toward three men, calms down a horse by pushing it on the ass, shoots an assailant trying to kill a man who screams ‘THANK YOU!’, pushes two men fighting on a table into a pond, and then steals a woman’s scarf to wrap someone’s wound. It’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen in a so called ‘serious’ movie.
Goldfinger (1964)
Now there are a lot of good moments in Goldfinger, it being one of the best Bond films, so it’s difficult to just pinpoint one as the best, but I can say which is my favorite: The Aston Martin car chase. It starts out as a simple enough sequence with Bond using all the tricks and gadgets in the car to evade his enemies. He uses the smokescreens, and the oil jets to force them off the road and even though it’s very similar to Hanna-Barbera’s Wacky Races, you’re with it as an audience member. When Bond is captured, however, his enemies do a very stupid thing and make him drive his car at gun point, which is when he gets to utilize the passenger ejector seat (that he scoffed at when shown mind you). Plus you can’t beat the old woman with the machine gun.
