007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

007: The Darkest James Bond Movies, Ranked

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The majority of the James Bond movies are fun action-packed romps, but there’s a handful of subversively dark and gritty entries in the franchise.

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007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

Most of the James Bond movies are fun, action-packed romps with goofy one-liners and far-fetched gadgets, but the franchise also has a handful of subversively dark and gritty entries that offer a nice counterpoint to the traditional silliness. Timothy Dalton’s Bond, for example, was particularly violent.

The most well-known example of a darker Bond movie is 2006’s Casino Royale, whose gritty realism was a direct response to the Austin Powers movies’ lampooning of all the tired 007 tropes, but there are a few other great examples.

7 Skyfall (2012)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

Five years after Javier Bardem won an Academy Award for playing sadistic hitman Anton Chigurh in the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, he played an equally chilling villain in Sam Mendes’ Skyfall. While most Bond villains are hellbent on world domination or some other ridiculous ambition, Raoul Silva simply wants revenge against M for how she handled his own time as an operative.

The scene in which Silva reveals the injuries he sustained when he attempted to end his own life with cyanide is particularly dark. Skyfall opens with Bond suffering a near-death experience that leaves him out of action for months and ends with M being killed.

6 For Your Eyes Only (1981)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

After Bond went to space to cash in on the success of Star Wars in Moonraker, the producers went back to basics with For Your Eyes Only. Throughout the rest of the ‘80s, the Roger Moore-led Bond movies would experiment with full-blown slapstick comedy, but For Your Eyes Only was refreshingly dark and gritty.

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The plot concerns Bond’s search for a missile command system, but it uncovers a much grimmer and more personal conflict: Melina Havelock’s quest to avenge the murder of her parents.

5 The Living Daylights (1987)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

Timothy Dalton’s second Bond movie, Licence to Kill, was even darker and grittier than his first, The Living Daylights, and that movie was already pretty dark, as it established Dalton’s more faithful adaptation of the character from Ian Fleming’s novels.

The plot concerns the revival of the KGB’s “Smiert Spionam” (“Death to Spies”) policy. In his first outing as Bond, Dalton dug a lot deeper into the character’s troubling psychology than any of his predecessors.

4 From Russia With Love (1963)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

After establishing Bond’s characterization in Dr. No, Terence Young and Sean Connery went to darker places with the 1963 follow-up, From Russia with Love. Most fans feel that the franchise’s formula wasn’t perfected until Guy Hamilton helmed Goldfinger in 1964, but Young’s initial two efforts still hold up as timeless classics.

While most of the action in the Bond franchise exists purely for entertainment, there are a couple of shocking, hard-hitting sequences in From Russia with Love that aren’t so easy to stomach. One highlight is Bond’s fight with Red Grant on the Orient Express, one of the most intense and visceral fistfights ever put on film. The real sense of danger to Bond’s life still packs a punch today.

3 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a unique kind of Bond movie in more ways than just being the only one to star George Lazenby as 007. In the opening scene, Bond saves a woman from her attempt to end her own life by drowning. In the final scene, he marries that same woman, and then she’s killed in a drive-by shooting on the way to their honeymoon. While most Bond movies end with an on-the-nose sexual pun, this one ends with 007 in tears, cradling his dead soulmate.

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The bleaker tone of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service lines up with the contemporary state of cinema. As The Graduate and Easy Rider ushered in the New Hollywood era, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service primed Bond for the ‘70s.

2 Casino Royale (2006)

007 The Darkest James Bond Movies Ranked

After Die Another Day was universally panned and Austin Powers had spoofed all the familiar tropes, the Bond producers realized they couldn’t stick to their franchise’s established traditions and that they needed to shake things up with a reboot. They hired GoldenEye’s Martin Campbell, the same guy they hired the last time that happened, to direct Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

Casino Royale acts as an origin story for Bond, with Craig playing a young, inexperienced Bond prone to making mistakes and unaccustomed to killing. From the stairwell melee to the torture scene to the climactic drowning, Casino Royale pushes the boundaries of its PG-13 rating at every turn.

1 Licence To Kill (1989)

While most Bond movies follow 007 on an official MI6 mission, Licence to Kill sees him pursuing a personal vendetta on his own time as a rogue agent. After Felix Leiter’s wife is murdered by ruthless cartel boss Franz Sanchez, Bond swears revenge.

If Bond was sent to kill Scarface, it might look something like this. Timothy Dalton’s refreshingly brutal 007 will stop at nothing to avenge his CIA contact. This is the only Bond movie to earn a 15 rating in the UK, thanks to its uncompromising violence, serious tone, and setting in the narcotics industry.

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