It's incredible to think that since James Bond's first on-screen appearance, only 7 actors have portrayed him on screen. Doctor Who has been around almost as long and 22 actors have at one time or another regenerated into the Doctor's body and shoes. With only a couple of exceptions, every version of James Bond has been memorable for great reasons, and this list is going to explain my own personal ranking of the James Bond actors going from worst to best.
Some James Bond fans might have quirked at my statement of only 7 actors having played the part and say, "Wait a minute, you're forgetting Barry Nelson who played the role in the 1954 CBS TV adaptation of Casino Royale in the anthology series "Climax!"", to which I say, No, I'm not forgetting about him, he is disqualified from this list, because he isn't playing James Bond of the British Secret Service, Barry Nelson played Jimmy Bond of America's 'Combined Intelligence Agency'. It may well be the first appearance of the character that Ian Fleming wrote, but in all honesty, Barry Nelson's performance was about as far away from James Bond as it was possible to get, so even if I count him, he's at the bottom of the list, but because it's not James Bond of the British Secret Service, it doesn't count.
So with all that pre-amble out of the way, let's get into the list proper, and bring you the full list of the James Bond Actors, from Worst to Best.
7: David Niven
If I were just judging this list on quality of performance alone, David Niven would be much higher on the list than this. But it isn't judged solely on quality of performance, so David Niven ends up here . But why?
There's no question that David Niven gives a great performance as Sir James Bond in the 1967 parody film, Casino Royale. A film that by the way, scores a 5.2 on IMDB, whilst Rotten Tomatoes score it much lower, with the critics score or tomatometer being only 28%, whilst the audience score is a little better at 35%.
Yes, Casino Royale 1967 (as I refer to it to differentiate it from both the 1954 TV show and the 2006 official entry into the James Bond movie universe), is not a great film. Sure there are some great moments there, and the production design is amazing, and the cast is something approaching insane in terms of star power, but the convuluted plot and the messiness of changing looks and plots and directors, just drags it down painfully, and as such also drags down David Niven's wonderful performance, which is unquestionably one of the better things in the whole movie, along with Woody Allen's performance.
Sadly, as great as the performance is, there is very little about it that is identifiably James Bond, even in a parody sense. Not in the physicality, not in the characterisation, not in any way at all. And that is really what marks him down, and drops him to the bottom of the list.
It feels a little harsh to be putting such a great performance so low on the list, but the reasons why are sound, and honestly, it's more important to embody the character, or at least, give me something that feels like James Bond, rather than this, which is basically, David Niven playing David Niven once again.
You see, this is one of the things that some actors can get away with, is just playing themselves time and again, and David Niven, as wonderful as he was to watch, was one of those actors who always played himself.
He basically played himself in The Pink Panther film in 1963, when he was cast as Sir Charles Lytton, or as I prefer to call him, Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious Lytton. He basically played himself in the 1950 film The Elusive Pimpernel, when he was cast as Sir Percy Blakeney, also known as The Scarlet Pimpernel. He basically played himself in the 1956 film Around The World in 80 Days, when he was cast as Phineas Fogg. And he basically played himself in the 1978 film Death On The Nile, where he was cast as Colonel Race.
He did the same thing in Casino Royale, but in that film, as in all the ones I previously mentioned, David Niven's performance ranged between great and outstanding, and it didn't actually matter to your enjoyment of the film, that David Niven just played David Niven for the umpteenth time.
So, ultimately, that is why David Niven comes in at the bottom of the list.
6: George Lazenby
George Lazenby only played James Bond once, in the 1969 film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', and whilst that film is excellent in so many ways, the film scores 6.8 on IMDB, whilst the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer sits at 82%, and the audience score is 64%, one of things that does drag it down, not the only thing, but one of them, is unfortunately George Lazenby as James Bond.
For almost the entirity of the film, George Lazenby is completely wooden as James Bond, there's little sense of personality, very little in the way of actual performance there, it is painful to watch him here as 007.
The only thing that really saves him here is his physicality in the various fight scenes and action scenes. He puts a very creditable physical performance into the fights, though they are not helped by some god awful dubbing that was done to make the fight scenes sound almost comically bad, yet mute the sound, and purely looking at his physical work, it's very good in the action sequences, and it rescues him from the bottom of the list, but only just.
He does do one scene very well, which is the last scene where he is cradling a dead Tracy whilst talking to a policeman on a motorcycle, and he really pulls that off, but everything else just feels painful to watch, and because of that, George Lazenby ends up just off the bottom of the list.
In fact George Lazenby's best performance as James Bond isn't even in a James Bond film, and he isn't credited as James Bond, because legally they couldn't. He was credited as J.B. But he was driving an Aston Martin DB5, with the same box of tricks, the licence plate was a simple J B and there were plenty of references to James Bond films and lines, such as On Her Majesty's Secret Service and shaken, but not stirred dropped into this car chase sequence, just to hammer home the fact that it was James Bond.
The cameo was in the 1983 TV movie, Return Of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair and was designed to play up the fact that Ian Fleming, James Bond's creator, had initially been an uncredited consultant on the original TV series in the very early days of the show, in the creation process, and Napoleon Solo was very much based on the James Bond character. It just goes to show that with some time, and experience, George Lazenby might have become a better James Bond.
5: Roger Moore
A lot of Bond purists will point to the fact that Roger Moore's performances as Bond are almost as far away from the book version of the character as it is possible to get, and whilst there is some truth to that, there is a lot about Roger Moore's version that does feel right for Bond, even if a lot of his performance isn't very Bondian.
There are very powerful moments that Roger Moore delivered that were very much James Bond, such as in The Man With The Golden Gun when he meets Lazar for the first time, and his entire interaction with him, very much feels like James Bond. The same can be said for most of Roger Moore's performance from For Your Eyes Only, which I feel is a very underrated Bond film. The film scores 6.8 on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer scores it 72% whilst the audience score is 64%. My score for the movie though is above 80%, because even though Moore reportedly hated the darker tone, he pulled it off so well that it may well be one of his best performances ever anywhere.
But equally, his films did a lot of stuff that really wasn't very Bondian. The infamous gondola sequence in Moonraker is a sequence that really doesn't feel very Bondian, and isn't very good on many other levels as well. Also, the infamous sequence in Octopussy where Bond is being hunted by Kamal Khan, and he tells a tiger to "sit!" ala Barbara Woodhouse, and do a Tarzan yell while swinging through the trees, again just emphasises how un-Bond-like he could be.
Rather like David Niven, you rarely got character work from Roger Moore, it was mostly Roger just playing himself, although there are some notable exceptions, such as in For Your Eyes Only. But again his performances were often so enjoyable, it made up for things that just weren't that good, except for the gondola sequence, nothing could save that from infamy...
Sorry for inflicting that on you, but it is god awful.
Roger's performances were often light hearted, and the humour felt wrong for Bond, and that is one of the reasons why Roger Moore comes in at this level.
4: Daniel Craig
If I'd done this list back in 2011, Daniel Craig would have been number 5 and Roger Moore would be in this spot, but the two most recent films for Daniel Craig have elevated him into the number 4 spot and for good reason.
His performances in both Skyfall and Spectre were so much better than his first two attempts in Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.
In Casino Royale 2006, his performance was somewhat one note, in the sense that he did dark, mean and moody well and everything else just didn't come off very well. In Quantum Of Solace, his performance was literally one-note. He literally only did dark, mean and moody in that film, nothing else, and his performance was awful.
Thankfully, in 2012's Skyfall, Sam Mendes managed to direct a great performance out of Daniel Craig. His performance was diverse, multi-faceted, and very good, and then Spectre was almost as good in terms of his performance, and much more like classic Bond, and it saw him rise up in my standings to take the number 4 slot away from Roger Moore.
However, if Bond 25 is a dud, he could slip down the rankings once again.
3: Sean Connery
Oh, I bet a lot of people are gonna hate me for this, but yes, Sean Connery comes in at number 3, not number 1. But it's not as though there's a massive gap between number 3 and number 1, in fact, there's very little seperating number 1 from number 5. It's only George Lazenby and David Niven who are really significantly worse than the others.
Sean Connery had some amazing performances in his first 4 films as James Bond. It's generally accepted that his best performance is Goldfinger, even though James Bond is imprisoned for almost half the film. He does more in Thunderball, From Russia With Love and Doctor No.
It's with You Only Live Twice that his performances slipped. He seemed to be just going through the motions on that film, and not really putting much effort in. When he was brought back in Diamonds Are Forever, the performance was better, but still not up to the standard of those first 4 films. There were moments though in that film where he was obviously just going through the motions, but he did have some better moments in that film.
However, his worst performance was in the unofficial film, Never Say Never Again in 1983. It was clear that he had absolutely no chemistry with both his Bond Girl, Domino Petachi, played by Kim Basinger, nor with the villian of the piece, Maximillian Largo, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer. He did give some great moments, especially with Felix Leiter, played here by Bernie Casey, but so much about that performance was off-key and off-kilter, that a few good moments couldn't rescue it from the bottom of the pile as far as Sean Connery's performances go.
But overall, Sean Connery set the standard for James Bond in those first four films, and he's only been bettered by two other actors in my view, so it's a high number 3 for Sean Connery.
2: Pierce Brosnan
Now I can hear what you're saying now, how can you put Pierce Brosnan above Sean Connery? Sure, Brosnan was excellent, but he had one really awful film in Die Another Day. To which I would say that Brosnan's performances, even in Die Another Day, were consistently high quality. Yes, his best film may have been his first, with two mediocre films before a truly awful one, but Brosnan's own performances in all those films were remarkably consistent, and amazingly good.
His performance in Goldeneye set the new standard for Bond in 1995. He damn near perfectly embodied the darkness that existed in Bond from the very first film, yet he managed to seem both damaged and the embodiment of coolness, at the same time.
His performances in both Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough managed to bring in some appropriate humour responses, and bring in aspects of Roger Moore's Bond, without making it feel out of place, or indeed inappropriate.
Even in Die Another Day, he kept up the same quality of performance, it was just a shame that the material he was given was weaker than tea that has been made by a single quick dip of a teabag into a mug of hot water.
He sold himself as Bond in Goldeneye's pre-title sequence, and you never doubted him all the way through his films. He was Bond. It's just that one other actor, managed to embody the character of James Bond, just a little bit better.
1: Timothy Dalton
Okay, I know some people are going to question me putting Dalton up here when I put Daniel Craig down at number 4, but in both of his films, Timothy Dalton was James Bond, without question. In fact, he was the book version of James Bond, perfectly brought to the screen.
He was sold to me as Bond in that pre-title sequence in The Living Daylights, and his performance during the rest of that film was perfect. Every mannerism felt like it had weight behind it, and meaning. Even something as simple as blowing cigarette smoke out during the debrief scene with General Koskov, had meaning behind it that played into the character beautifully.
In Licence To Kill, Dalton's prescence and charisma was mixed with Bond's darkness in his quest for vengeance on Sanchez, creating a memorable and stunning performance that just oozed cool and yet never lost the edge to the darkness that was needed for this film. Bond was brutal here, but unlike in Casino Royale 2006, the brutality was not gratuitous and that just elevated Dalton to the number 1 spot.
So yes, Timothy Dalton is my number one James Bond actor. Do you agree with me? I'm pretty sure most Bond fans won't agree with Dalton at number 1 but what is your best James Bond actor? I look forward to finding out.
Video version from the Ian Beaumont Live & Direct YouTube channel.
