How Many James Bond Movies Are Actually Good? The Answer Will Surprise You

As sure as you can expect the sun to rise in the east and set in the west, you can expect a new James Bond movie to come out every few years. 007 has proven to be a more durable cinematic brand than Marvel, DC, and Star Wars. Since the early 1960s, Eon has been pumping out Bond movies like nobody’s business, and making money hand over fist. When one Bond actor runs his course, they simply reboot the series with another one. The rinse-and-reboot approach to Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man began with Bond.

Along with Planet of the Apes, Bond was one of the first ever bona fide movie franchises; a repeatable, episodic formula that the rights holders could count on for a tidy profit every couple of years. But, while the Bond films are always a ton of fun, the quality can be very hit-and-miss. For every great Bond movie, there’s a terrible one right around the corner.

After we get a Bond masterpiece like Casino Royale, the next movie is almost guaranteed to be a dud like Quantum of Solace. Outside of the early days of Sean Connery, the early days of Roger Moore, and the short-lived tenure of Timothy Dalton, it’s extremely rare that the Bond franchise has back-to-back bangers.

The Percentage Of James Bond Films That Are Actually Great Isn't That High

There are some truly great Bond movies, from Goldfinger to GoldenEye, but the percentage of Bond films that are actually good isn’t all that high. The Bond franchise consists of 25 official Eon productions, plus two unofficial ones (the 1967 Casino Royale parody and Connery’s non-Eon outing Never Say Never Again), and out of those 27 total movies, only 14 of them are good to great, and the other 13 — You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Quantum of Solace, Spectre, Never Say Never Again, and the ’67 Casino Royale — are bad to terrible.

That means only 51% of the Bond movies are good, and the other 49% were disappointments. That’s not a great batting average; they barely have more hits than misses, which doesn’t bode well for the franchise’s future. It’s been a sad reality for decades now that whenever Bond fans go to see a new movie in their favorite spy series, there’s about a 50/50 chance they’re going to have a bad time.

Arguably, the only two that are actually truly great films, beyond pure escapist spectacle, are Casino Royale and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, GoldenEye, Skyfall, and No Time to Die all exemplify the Bond mythos at its best, even if their only Oscar hopes were in Best Original Song.

Why James Bond Keeps Surviving, Despite Its Bad Movies

Despite its very hit-and-miss quality, the Bond franchise has been thriving, with nary a lull, since 1962. That’s practically unheard of for a big movie franchise — they usually die down after a few years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe seemed to be unstoppable in the 2010s, and it’s already at death’s door in the mid-2020s. Even the Star Wars saga, once one of Hollywood’s most dependable brands, was destroyed by Disney in the space of less than a decade.

So, how has the James Bond franchise managed to survive for this long? If only half the movies are good, why do people keep showing up after more than six decades? Well, it’s simple: even the bad ones are a ton of fun. Octopussy is a pretty awful movie, but it’s still a ton of fun, with thrilling stunts and a delightfully wry turn by Moore, so it was still worth the trip to the theater.