Top 50 Bond Moments

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50. The Walken Dead (A View To A Kill, 1985)
A View To A Kill might disprove the theory that any movie can be made interesting by simply adding Christopher Walken to its cast, but at least he gets one moment of oddness: losing his grip on The Golden Gate Bridge, his psychotic Max Zorin offers a little guffaw in the face of imminent plummeting. Or maybe he finally read the script.


49. Piranha Feeding Time (You Only Live Twice, 1967)
Blofeld does for nearly as many henchman as Bond, executing all those that disappoint him – and that’s most of them – in a variety of nasty ways. His Oriental adventure sees him fail to tolerate the failure of Helga Brandt, triggering the walkway trapdoor as she clips across it, sending her in as elevenses for his pet piranhas. Somewhere Dr. Evil was taking notes.


48. The Credits (Thunderball, 1965)
“Can you bounce on the trampoline a little more?” Surely the best job in movies would have been Maurice Binder’s assistant: helping create the sensual, titillating title sequences that have become a Bond signature. The best? Well, Thunderball not only finds Binder hitting his sexy stride, but also was the first to use genuine naked models. If we weren’t looking closely before, we were now.


47. Rough Diamond (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971)
Diamond smuggler Peter Franks gets the big shaft, as Bond – looking to impersonate him - intercepts Franks in an Amsterdam elevator. With both the actors and the cameras restricted by space, this is our last flash of Connery’s hairy-chested Bondage as he and Joe Robinson tear down the lift from the inside. Going down, sir?

46. Kananga Goes Boom (Live and Let Die, 1973)
The first rule of the Bond baddie: why just kill 007 when you can try a more-cumbersome, easily escapable technique? Exhibit A: Dr Kananga – or is that Mister Big? – going for the old lowering Bond into the shark tank trick, only to find himself facing off against the freed superspy in the beast-infested water. Bond bungs a shark pellet in Kananga’s cramhole causing the villain to balloon with air, eventually painting his lovely new underground lair a new shade of crack baron.

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45. Airport Departure (Casino Royale, 2006)
Bond grounds Le Chiffre’s share-jacking attempt to bomb Richard Branson’s new plane, relentlessly chasing the bomber through the airport, over moving trucks, under planes and across the airfield – his mission seemingly foiled by the arrival of the cops. Having taken a battering more akin to Chandler than Fleming along the way, the deliciously wry smile on Bond’s face when the bomb he’s surreptitiously re-planted goes off tells a story in itself.


44. Clebb Foot (From Russia With Love, 1963)
Hatchet-faced Rosa Klebb and her killer heels remain one of Bond’s most iconic baddies. This is partly because SPECTRE’s no.3 is an all round nasty piece of Shchi, and partly because it’s quite amusing when you see Connery finally square up to what looks like your nan by attacking her with a chair. Room service will not be getting a tip.


43. Boat-Trip Up The Thames (The World Is Not Enough, 1999)
Bond’s pursuit of ‘Cigar Girl’ Maria Grazia Cucinotta down the Thames took seven weeks to shoot, an everything-including-the-fish-market’s kitchen sink sequence complete with a overland detour through a restaurant, 360 degree jump and giving two traffic wardens a suitably nasty soaking (their reactions are genuine). It makes 007’s Olympic co-star’s Jubilee flotilla look like a wet weekend in June.


42. Baggage Handler (The Living Daylights, 1987)
An open aircraft cargo door; a hidden bomb ticking down among the identical bags; a badass henchman - Necros, one of the franchise’s most-effective heavies, just check out his murderous milkround – trying to detach the dangling spy from the bags as the bomb ticks down. It’s the quintessential Bond dilemma, and a classic bit of ludicrously dangerous stunt work from BJ Worth and Jake Lombard; the fact that Bond defeats his foe thanks to a shoelace rather than a laser-watch makes it all the better.


41. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice, 1967)
It’s always the small ones. Discovered doing a little reconnaissance, Bond’s tiny autogyro manages to wipe out SPECTRE’s choppers thanks to its enormous arsenal. Slightly unrealistic flamethrower effect aside, the sequence is a masterpiece of can’t-see-the-many-cracks editing and was naturally a right pain to film – very literally for cameraman John Jordan who sadly lost his foot to the rotors after getting caught in a downdraft.

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40. No Tie? (Die Another Day, 2002)
Having survived 14 months of torture at the hands of the North Koreans – maybe they just played Madonna’s theme tune on a loop – Bond gets cold-shouldered suspicion from M in Hong Kong harbour. So he fakes a heart attack and jumps ship. The kicker? A bearded, bedraggled and sopping wet Bond pimp rolls into the plush Royal Rubyeon Hotel like he owns the joint and demands his usual suite.

39. Jetpack (Thunderball, 1965)
Look up! Bond’s always had an explosive pocket rocket, but escaping SPECTRE’s agents from a French chateau’s courtyard at the start of the fourth 007 flick he needs the real deal – the Bell rocket belt. This is the first and only recorded use of Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang resorting to a strap on.


38. Train Chase (Octopussy, 1981)
Staring grimly at a “Battle Of The Bonds” with the unofficial Connery-starring Never Say Never Again, Eon knew they had to flex their action muscles. This five-minute Indiana-Jones-esque sequence sees Moore – or at least his poor stunt double, who picked up a nasty injury when he hit a concrete block while dangling from the train – go under, over and through the locomotive; pursued all the way by steel-flashing Gobinda and a knife-throwing assassin. One-nil to Octopussy.


37. “Shocking. Positively Shocking” (Goldfinger, 1964)
Bond sees lust in the eyes of his latest conquest. Except lust happens to look like an ugly henchman – not mirror-flipped in one of cinema’s most-famous goofs – who, after a suitable tussle with 007, ends up getting the drop on him, even if he is sitting in a bath. It’s the latter that does for him, with Bond improvising by chucking the electric lamp in the tub too.


36. The Tin Snail Soars (For Your Eyes Only, 1981)
With Bond’s Lotus self-destructing in a back-to-basics statement, Bond and Melina escape the clutches of Gonzales in a decidedly less-glamourous 2CV. Making up for durability what it lacks in power, the chase through the winding streets of Corfu, tumbling down cliffs, backwards driving and of course the big jump. Out horse-powered and out-gunned; never out-maneuvered.

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35. Bond RIP (From Russia With Love, 1963)
They just killed Bond! Or did they? The second flick opens with a hesitant Bond hunting down thuggish-looking killer Red Grant, who then effortlessly garrotes Bond to death… before revealing that it’s a training exercise for the bad guys, a Connery mask falling off some hapless tuxed-up henchman; Connery evidently enjoying playing this heavily made-up faux-007. A trick so good, they’ve repeated it twice: You only live thrice, Mr Bond.


34. Trespassers Will Be Eaten (Live and Let Die, 1973)
The pathway to safety is a little wild, as Bond – abandoned on a small island in the middle of an alligator infested waters – escapes becoming croc-chow by using the reptiles’ backs as stepping stones. Performed by Ross Kananga – who also loaned his name to the movie’s bad guy – the last croc spots him coming and nearly, nearly, nips his leg. Falling between the cracks here would definitely be bad luck.


33. Murder On The Dancefloor (Thunderball, 1965)
How to kill two birds with one stone. Having already given the good-looking bad egg Fiona Volpe a round of horizontal tango, Bond’s best move on the packed Bahaman dancefloor is to spin her directly into an assassin’s bullet; frightening off the other henchmen. It’s a small moment but a telling one – Bond is cool, cruel and nobody’s fool.


32. Passenger Disembarking (Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997)
Having stolen a nuclear-armed L-39 Albatros plane to get the naughty goodies away from an MI6 air strike, Bond shows his unwitting co-pilot the door, ejecting him out of one plane and straight into the enemy’s. Taking Goldfinger’s ejector seat gag to a whole new height – around 3,000 ft high to be precise – the arms-heist-gone-wrong opening fizzes with an energy lacking in the rest of the movie.


31. Free Running (Casino Royale, 2006)
Leaping freestyle on the parkour bandwagon, 007 pursues the bomb-maker Mollaka through a Madagascan building site and eventually all the way through an embassy, contrasting the terrorist’s nimble approach with the new Bond’s blunter bluster: Mollaka jumps over walls, 007 just walks through them like a sledgehammer.

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30. Felix Lighter (Licence To Kill, 1989)
A Remy Julienne special that sees Bond get his 18-wheeler up onto two wheels – a practical effect performed by Julienne himself. Licence might be the least Bond-like of all the movies but the finale – and it’s brutal machete slashing conclusion – burns with all the intensity of a truck’s worth of cocaine-laced gasoline. Now if only there were an ironic way to set off the huge explosion.


29. The Duel (The Man With The Golden Gun, 1974)
Challenged to an old-fashioned duel by the triple-nippled Scaramanga, Bond finds himself having to tip-toe around the million-dollar assassin’s funhouse – tailor-made for picking off pesky secret agents. But after a bit of (Tex Avery) cat and mouse, Bond – hiding in plain sight – ends up making Scaramanga look like a bit of a tit.


28. Bond Hits The Slopes (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969)
Filming Bond’s skiing debut – a speed-cranked pursuit from Blofeld’s lair on Piz Gloria – sounds just as exciting as the chase itself; the camera crew creating new harnesses to capture the relentless pursuit. That cocky git Lazenby – having insisted on doing as many of his own stunts as possible – broke his arm, delaying filming; his relationship with Cubby Broccoli was all downhill from there.


27. Roads? We Doesn’t Need Roads (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)
Pursued by a chopper and running out of pier, Bond takes his not-entirely-anonymous Lotus Turbo Esprit where it can’t be followed… the water, where the super-sleek motor transforms into a sub. Easily Q branch’s pinnacle, certainly where toys are concerned; the 3-inch version going straight to the top of many a kid’s Christmas list.


26. “I Never Miss” (The World Is Not Enough, 1999)
“You wouldn’t kill me. You’d miss me.” Elektra King is proved wrong with extreme prejudice, as Bond shoots down his former lover without hesitation the second she gives the order to Renard to launch his nuclear sub. A second later he gives way to his emotion, tenderly embracing the body before making his big exit… out the window, obviously.

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25. Wrong Connection (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)
Jaws makes a suitably ghoulish re-appearance while Bond and his rival Anya Amasova travel by rail, the indestructible giant looming out of the cabin’s closet to try and plant another of his killer kisses on the beautiful Russian Spy. Part Frankenstein, part Dracula, all unstoppable monster.


24. Water Slaughter (Thunderball, 1965)
Like Saving Private Ryan, but with harpoons. The US Coast Guard and Bond – pimped out in a Boba-Fett airpack – take on Largo’s underwater forces in a surprising gritty underwater battle. In the days when going underwater for most Brits meant your average day’s downpour, Thunderball’s endless forays into the Caribbean’s big blue must have seemed almost impossibly exotic.


23. The Ejector Seat (Goldfinger, 1964)
Can all passengers note that the exit door is either to the side but also directly above your head. In the event of an emergency, like some jackass pointing a gun at the driver, he will press on a secret button in his gear stick and send his passenger through the roof. Please leave in a less-than-orderly fashion.


22. The Car Spin (The Man With The Golden Gun, 1974)
Designed by the boffins at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, this is a stunt that looks good on a calculator and even better on screen. With colossal cine-fail JW Pepper riding shotgun, Bond sends his car over the broken bridge, rolling his AMC Hornet 360 mid-air to perfectly touch down on the other side. A stunt so cool that even that fricking Benny Hill penny-whistle can’t ruin it.


21. Treehugger (Thunderball, 1965)
Sneaking up on 007 puts you on the fast-track to becoming a bloody punchline. Creepy comb-overed henchman Vargas unsubtle approach on Bond at the beach – fresh from bluntly announcing to Domino that her brother’s dead – only leads Britain’s finest to casually pick up and fire the harpoon gun, leaving Vargas hanging from the tree like a balding banana. “I think he got the point.”

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20. Ball Busting (Casino Royale, 2006)
Time to cross those legs. Torturing Bond for the access password to the gambled millions, Le Chiffre hits this British symbol of virile masculinity where it’ll hurt him the most. Having his ‘secret service’ revoked by blunt force, this is Bond at his most desperate, scared and near-crazed, but also at his most gutsy and determined – his sad-eyed admission that he won’t even save his beloved Vesper with the information says it all: this is a man who will never, ever yield.



19. Tanking Through St Petersburg (Goldeneye, 1995)
You probably need a licence for that. In his pursuit of Janus operative Ourumov and the kidnapped Natalya, Bond steals and then drives a tank through the streets of St Petersburg – and sometimes just through the buildings – giving the city an ungainly facelift along the way.



18. “Now Pay Attention” (Goldfinger, 1964)
The sojourn into Q branch is as signature to Bond as a Walther PPK or a roll in the hay; MI6’s Quartermaster talks Bond through his latest gadgets, conveniently setting up a crucial bit of info for use later on, while Bond quips and smirks like a scalded schoolboy. The third Bond movie sees Q talk through his tricked-out Aston Martin – the artillery, the tracker, the ejector seat – with the astonished spy declaring that he must be joking. “I never joke about my work, 007.”



17. Bond, James Bond (Casino Royale, 2006)
“Mr White? We need to talk.” Bond chases down Vesper’s final clue to Lake Como, mercilessly disables his quarry and then introduces himself; a man who finally understands who he is, what he does and – wearing an immaculately cool three-piece – how to look good doing it. Cunningly, team Bond saved the classic theme for this moment, sending electrified audiences out into night thinking, ‘This is just the beginning.’



16. Bond Meets His Nemesis (You Only Live Twice, 1967)
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Ernst Stavro Blofeld.” Having been represented in the previous movies by only a menacing staccato voice and a pussycat, Bond – and the world in general – finally comes eye-to-scarred-eye with the head of SPECTRE. A last-minute super-sub for Jan Werich, Donald Pleasance gives the character an otherworldly creepiness that suggests an unblinking inhumanity.

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15. Cuff Pop (Skyfall, 2012)
The Underground crash, the introduction of a new Q, the chase through Turkey… the Skyfall trailer suggests that there’s a lot to look forward to. The thing that really hoists our flag is the sight of Bond hopping onto a moving train just as its entire rear end is literally torn a new one, giving his cuffs a stylish pop as he lands. It’s the sort of thing that suggests that maybe, just maybe, Daniel Craig’s about to start having a little fun with the role.



14. Rocked In Gibraltar (The Living Daylights, 1987)
Bond smells something funny being cooked up on The Rock. Pursuing the spy who’s fatally sabotaged MI6’s Gibraltar-set training exercise, the underrated Timothy Dalton gets to grips with the roof of a jeep as well as the role; re-establishing Bond as an action character – after Moore’s more pensionable outings – with the sort of no-nonsense head-butting brutality that Craig would later be praised for.



13. A Dressing Down (Goldeneye, 1995)
“I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War” Judi Dench’s sharp-tongued M jumps on the elephant in the room and gives it a good run around, establishing Brosnan’s Bond as a man slightly out of time while placing M – and her shifting relationship with her most troublesome employee – at the heart of the franchise.



12. Locque’s Cliffhanger (For Your Eyes Only, 1981)
With nasty assassin Emile Locque at his mercy – shot, and dangling over a rocky cliff edge in his car – Bond instead gives him a helping hand (or is that boot) over the cliff’s edge. Easily Roger Moore’s most cold-eyed moment during his MI6 stint, his unsparing look of total contempt for the villain leaves you in doubt that Locque’s about to be caught very literally between a rock and a hard place.



11. “Bond. James Bond” (Dr No, 1962)
Amazing who you can bump into on a quiet night playing the baccarat tables Le Circle at Les Ambassadeurs club. Sylvia Trench’s losing streak turns up a real ace as she strikes up a conversation with the guy wearing satin turn-back cuffs and a lip armed with an insouciant curl and a cigarette. And after he introduces himself – to her, and the world - it's unlikely to be just the money he’s stripping off her.

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10. Brosnan’s Bungee (Goldeneye, 1995)
After a six-year, franchise-threatening delay, James Bond finally does return with Pierce Brosnan literally launching himself into the part as Bond freefalls off the side of the vertigo-inducing Archangel dam with only a bungee cord for comfort. The epic 220-metre stunt - performed by Wayne Daniels – broke the record for the highest bungee jump off a fixed structure.


9. Out Of Bullets (Dr No, 1962)
“That’s a Smith & Weston. You’ve had your six.” With a cigarette cruelly dangling form his lips, Bond entraps and casually interrogates Dr. No’s lackey Professor Dent, the latter desperately inching his pistol towards his reach. Unfortunately for the bad professor, 007 now has all he needs from Dent, plugging the unarmed man with one through the chest and another one through the smoking corpse for good measure. With two bullets and a cigarette, Connery sets up Bond’s credentials as a cunning spy and a cold-blooded killer.


8. Skydiving Without A Parachute (Moonraker, 1979)
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a middle-aged man in a cream turtle-neck/navy blazer ensemble. Bond takes flight in Moonraker’s sky highpoint, taking an unexpected tumble through the emergency exit, only to thieve the other guy’s parachute mid-air – before the danger level gets cranked up further by having Jaws loom into frame behind him. The big top ending might be pure raised-eyebrow Moore, but the ear-popping skydive footage – taking five weeks and 88 dives to shoot – wouldn’t be bettered until Point Break. Via con dios, brah!


7. All The Time In The World (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969)
This certainly didn’t happen to the other guy. The final scene of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – and of George Lazenby’s Bond career as it turns out – is the most shocking moment in Bond history; the honeymooning 007’s wedding car is strafed in a drive by, the stray bullets fatally catching his new wife Tracy. The broken superspy holds his wife in his arms and cries, as stunned audiences file out the cinema to the sound of Louis Armstrong and kill the movie with bad word of mouth. 50 years on, it’s justifiably celebrated as the series’ most moving moment.


6. Golden Girl (Goldfinger, 1964)
Poor Jill Masterson finds herself a million-dollar corpse, drenched in gold and suffocating to death. This is very-hard currency payback for discovering what Bond keeps under his powder-blue toweling playsuit and causing Auric Goldfinger to take a $50,000 sting at Gin Rummy. Five minutes of action for Shirley Eaton and a lifetime of fame as cinema’s most memorable stiff.

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5. Underneath The Mango Tree (Dr No, 1962)
“I’m just looking.” Ursula Andress’ Honey Ryder emerges from the sea like Venus from her shell (and only ever-so-slightly more dressed), receiving a suitable salute from Bond… and sending bikini sales through the roof. They later homaged it with Halle Berry’s more weaponised-bikini in Die Another Day, while Daniel Craig gave it a Speedo-packed twist in Casino Royale.


4. Laser Surgery (Goldfinger, 1964)
You don’t expect him to talk, do you? In fact, it’s Bond’s ability to gab that gets him out of his most iconic predicament, a laser set to permanently alter the way Bond prefers to dress. The fact that there really was a guy underneath the table using a blow torch to recreate the beam of the laser, slowly moving towards lil’ Sean is, for once, written all over Connery’s face.


3. Meet James Blond (Casino Royale, 2006)
After all the jibes, whining and hysteria, Daniel Craig finally emerges from the shadows. This black-and-white mini-movie gives the debutant a near-bulletproof introduction – one part jagged noir angles; the other Bourne-again kinetic cameras – as he outsmarts the bent section chief Dryden and out-throttles his contact, earning himself double-0 status in the process. Establishing both himself and the snarling tone of a new era of Bond flicks, Daniel Craig blows away Dryden, Fisher, and all of his critics.


2. Murder On The Orient Express (From Russia With Love, 1963)
“The first one won't kill you; not the second, not even the third... not till you crawl over here and you kiss… my… foot!” Having cornered Bond aboard the Orient Express, SPECTRE-assassin Red Grant comes at him with a hyped-up level of intensity that suggests that murdering Bond isn’t all he has on his mind – only he hadn’t counted on 007’s Q-branch attaché case, complete with tear-gas opening present. Filmed over three weeks and largely performed by Connery and Robert Shaw themselves, this is two-and-a-half minutes of knuckle-bloodying fisticuffs that threaten to tear the set off its hinges; a brutish, nasty and inventive sequence that established Bond as an action hero and helped flair over-active imaginations for a half-century. First class, old man, first class.


1. Patriotic Parachute (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)
‘James, I need you.” “So does England.” The spy who loved frankly quite a lot of people skis off to another mission, only to be pursued down the Austrian slopes by Soviet agents, lured to his apparent doom as he’s chased over the edge of a huge cliff to the sound of horrifying silence… only to launch a parachute emblazoned with the Union Jack, the Bond theme kicking in just as it opens like it was action’s national anthem. Performed by Rick Sylvester, the stunt itself took 10 days of waiting for the right conditions, $500,000 and two clackers of pure steel. But the sequence triggered standing ovations in theatres the world over, it remains quintessential Bond moment.