It’s Bond, James Bond Week here at For The Win, where we’ve shaken (not stirred) five days’ worth of content to celebrate the premiere of the iconic franchise’s 25th movie, No Time to Die. (No spoilers!)
We’ve done the all-important work of ranking every Bond film, but it’s now time to rank another vital part of the franchise: The theme songs that accompany every movie within the canon (shoutout to the original Casino Royale theme song by Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass that led to Peyton Manning dancing on SNL, but sorry, not canon). You won’t see Dr. No on here, because it’s got the original theme song, which would obviously be No. 1.
What are our criteria? Some combo of how spy movie-esque it is and if it’s actually a good listen on its own.
This is the correct ranking. No we will not be explaining why.
It’s Bond, James Bond Week here at For The Win, where we’ve shaken (not stirred) five days’ worth of content to celebrate the premiere of the iconic franchise’s 25th movie, No Time to Die. (No spoilers!)
I am here to rank the Bond movies.
Have I seen all of these films? Yes. I’m pretty sure. Some of the Daltons and Moores kinda run into each other, if I’m being honest, but as a not-very-employed blogger in the early 2010s whose roommate had a cable package with SpikeTV, let’s just say I watched a lot of Bond films.
I’m not going to explain my choices nor their order. Just trust me that they are correct. Also, I’m not counting the 1967 version of Casino Royale nor the 1983 film Never Say Never Again because they’re sort of spin-off, not-official Bond films and also because I’ve never seen either of them.
No Time to Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga set out to answer: What could open James Bond’s heart again?
It’s Bond, James Bond Week here at For The Win, where we’ve shaken (not stirred) five days’ worth of content to celebrate the premiere of the iconic franchise’s 25th movie, No Time to Die. (No spoilers!)
James Bond, particularly Daniel Craig’s version, is a sarcastic, dark and untrusting character. But in No Time to Die, Craig’s fifth and final film in the role, Bond is also humanized in a way unlike his four previous movies.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who also helped write the movie, said Craig was “enormously helpful” with his insight into the complex character, and Craig told For The Win he “tried to put as much of myself into” Bond’s emotional journey as he could.
Still, writing a charming but still enigmatic James Bond role and story fitting for the iconic character’s end in this era is no easy task.
“One of the first things I saw when I was writing Bond is like, ‘What the hell does Bond say?'” Fukunaga told For The Win. “Because Daniel has done a much more quiet, brooding version of Bond.”
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(Nicola Dove/MGM)
“He’s certainly not just vomiting out monologues, right?” Fukunaga continued. “So when you try to get down to figure out what is the right thing to say here, sometimes it just ends up being almost too short and too abbreviated.
“And so having Daniel around and sort of talk about this — one that one of the first things he said was like, ‘No one knows how to write Bond.’ It’s just one of those things. … It was challenging, and it was it was fun at the same time. That’s what made it sort of refreshing, I think, for me in terms of that exploration is like finding new layers to him that maybe we haven’t seen before.”
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While there are several allusions to Craig’s previous Bond movies — and it’s clearly a sequel to Spectre — Fukunaga and his team also worked to connect and conclude Bond’s entire narrative from Casino Royale through No Time to Die. That, of course, includes going back to Vesper Lynd, Bond’s tragic counterpart and love interest in Casino Royale who’s demise continues to haunt the 007 agent.
With a more personal and emotional plot, Fukunaga said the key question they needed to answer was: What could open James Bond’s heart again?
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
And No Time to Die picks up about where Spectre left off with Bond and his latest love interest, Madeleine Swann (played by Léa Seydoux), driving off into the sunset.
“Probably the main element for me was bridging that arc from the first film, Casino Royale, which was established with the Vesper Lynd character,” Fukunaga said. “The beating heart that was closed down at the end of Casino Royale when he calls back M [Judi Dench], and he says, ‘The bitch is dead.’ This is like an old-school Fleming line. And you could feel that heart just going whoosh.”
While James Bond has had plenty of love interests over the last several decades, the female characters in the more recent movies have evolved tremendously. They’re no longer portrayed merely as accessories for 007 with often fatal endings.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
Of course, Bond still has love interests. But the women in recent movies are also agents — from Judi Dench as M to Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny and Lashana Lynch’s Nomi, who debuts as briefly retired Bond’s 007 replacement in No Time to Die — with more developed characters who play central roles in pushing the plots forward. No Time to Die audiences also will learn even more about Madeleine’s backstory and her connection to Rami Malek’s disturbing villain, Lyutsifer Safin.
“This has been a development that’s been happening for years,” Fukunaga said.
“If you look at when Judi Dench was brought into the franchise on GoldenEye and she sits Pierce Brosnan’s Bond down and calls him ‘a misogynistic dinosaur’ and ‘a relic of the Cold War,’ that was a sort of calling out of a change happening there in terms of the people running not only the series, but also [the] 00 program and MI6. So 25 years later to have female 00 agents is not preposterous at all. It seems like it’s about time.
“But also, I think, just for me in general when I write stories, you can only have a richer story by having more layered characters, regardless of what their sex is, right? So if a character is simply just a prop and they’re supposed to be a central character, it’s not doing you very much favor in terms of interesting conflict and drama. So that was the main thing, just to make sure every character was really interesting and multi-dimensional.”
For The Win spoke with Lashana Lynch ahead of the U.S. premiere of “No Time to Die.”
It’s Bond, James Bond Week here at For The Win, where we’ve shaken (not stirred) five days’ worth of content to celebrate the premiere of the iconic franchise’s 25th movie, No Time to Die.
Lashana Lynch wanted to make her No Time to Die character her own and relatable — even if a 007 agent with a license to kill is anything but. The actress stars as Nomi, James Bond’s 007 replacement in MI6 who has to work with Daniel Craig’s recently retired charming but complicated sometimes brusque character to save the world from Rami Malek’s chilling villain, Lyutsifer Safin.
Ahead of the movie’s theatrical debut in the U.S. on Friday, For The Win sat down (virtually) with 33-year-old Lynch — who MCU fans will recognize from Captain Marvel — to talk about what she wanted for her No Time to Die character, highlights on set and doing her own stunts. (No spoilers!)
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
What was it like to play 007? And you did your own stunts, right?
I did do my own stunts, and I’m really, really proud of that, actually. You don’t often get the chance to be able to even use your body for a movie, so getting straight stuck in with that, that was the first thing that I did. I think, I want to say three days after I was cast, I was in the stunt room. And I lived in there practically because even on my days off, I would be in there training, just trying to get as strong as possible.
And so yeah, I’m glad to have that foundation now. And they really set me up to be like “00 best of all time” type of thing. They gave me lifelong ninja training that is gonna stand me in good stead for, I think, the rest of my career. So very grateful.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
How would you describe who Nomi is? What did you want her to be, and do you think that the film was able to live up to that?
That’s a really good question. I wanted Nomi to be the most relatable melanated women on screen. That was literally my aim. I wanted young Black girls to be able to see a future version of themselves that is already attainable through someone like Naomi on screen and in cinema history. And I wanted to give my child self a slice of what I didn’t get in being influenced and inspired by a woman on screen that makes sense.
And I wanted her to be authentic and real and funny and witty and strong and all of the things. But I also wanted her to just be figuring it out during the film, and seeing her figure it out really leads to the question of where Black women’s strength comes from, which is important to me.
So they did it. They did it well, they did it very well. And it was great to be able to step in those shoes and tell the story.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
Do you have a favorite scene or moment from No Time to Die?
It’s hard to pinpoint one. But our first day was that day where Bond and Nomi have the first real meeting, and that was in Jamaica. I’m Jamaican, my mum was there. We were celebrating just bringing my work and my culture together and creating history. So that was amazing.
But also, it’s such a big scene that I never anticipated, being my first day on set. But it was amazing to be able to just get straight in, not having to deal with any of the stunts and stuff. We were just talking and seeing these two very intricate, nuanced characters come to life. It was very exciting for me.
For The Win spoke with Daniel Craig about his iconic James Bond before ‘No Time to Die’ hits theaters.
It’s Bond, James Bond Week here at For The Win, where we’ve shaken (not stirred) five days’ worth of content to celebrate the premiere of the iconic franchise’s 25th movie, No Time to Die.
After 15 years as James Bond, Daniel Craig is saying goodbye to the iconic role he made his own through five films, ending with No Time To Die, which hits U.S. theaters on Friday.
Craig closes his final chapter in the Bond franchise with his scarred, steely yet in-love character with serious trust issues coming out of retirement to save the world from Rami Malek’s creepy, horrifying villain in Safin. Although No Time to Die is clearly more of a sequel to Spectre and less of a standalone production, it has the feel of an old-school Bond film while also humanizing the character more than any other entry on Craig’s resume.
Ahead of the movie’s release in the U.S., For The Win sat down (virtually) with 53-year-old Craig to talk about his Bond portrayal over the years and the end of an era.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
Congratulations on the film. You’ve been playing James Bond for now what amounts to 15 years. How would you describe who James Bond is when you first appeared as him in Casino Royale versus at the end of No Time to Die?
I suppose, like myself at the time. I was very naive and green and kind of didn’t really know how enormous everything was back then, how big the the franchise was. Although, I’d been watching it most of my life, so I kind of knew, I suppose.
Hopefully, he’s sort of emotionally grown through the films because I felt like that was something interesting to explore. Every movie that we’ve made, we’ve set out to make the best James Bond movie, because that’s what we were trying to do.
But I’ve just felt like, to make him complicated and conflicted and all sorts of things just to try and make the drama of it all more interesting. I don’t know. I’ve tried to put as much of myself into it as I possibly could.
How would you describe your James Bond in one word?
Oh, I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t know. Leaving.
(Nicola Dove/MGM)
On that note, how do you feel about the way James Bond’s overall story arc ended?
I’m very, very happy. I’m very happy that we managed to be able to tell a story all the way through. You know, it’s not something that has been done a narrative like that — although the books do have a kind of through line to them, partly Ian Fleming hating on him a lot.
But I’m very proud of this movie, as I am with all the movies. But I’m very proud of where we got to.
(Jay Maidment/MGM)
Every Friday, there’s a clip from you on Saturday Night Live that circulates around the internet introducing The Weeknd. How do you how do you feel about people using that to celebrate?
I only found out about that recently because I don’t have any — I’m not on social media or anything like that. So someone told me about it.
And I think it’s nice. I haven’t seen it. So I mean, I remember doing it, but I haven’t seen — I didn’t realize the impact that it had made. But it’s an unknown to me.
