The Best And Worst James Bond Actors, According To Rotten Tomatoes
Just like making your favorite martini, everyone has their own personal best James Bond when it comes to taking up the Walther PPK in an effort to save the world and not wreck his tuxedo while doing so. Over the course of the James Bond timeline, six brave souls have stepped up to the plate to get in on the spy antics, leading to some very mixed results. Some careful calculations from Rotten Tomatoes – that perhaps even Q would be pleased with — reveal just who is the best and worst of the bunch. To quote Mr. Bond himself, the results are positively shocking. Well, kind of.
If you know your Octopussys from your Oddjobs, you'll accept that Sean Connery, who brought Bond to life in the 1962 film, "Dr. No" and stuck around as the secret agent for six official films in the franchise, is on top of the Rotten Tomatoes rankings with an average 83.57% rating. It's actually his successor, George Lazenby, who is the runner-up at 81%, thanks to his one-and-done appearance in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." It makes sense then that Daniel Craig totals up as the third favorite Bond with an average critic rating of 79.2%, given that his final film, "No Time To Die," takes a lot of inspiration from Lazenby's heartbreaking outing as 007. From there, it's the trio in the middle of Bond's movie career whose rankings go from bad to worse.
Timothy Dalton tops Pierce Brosnan in the Bond rankings
While some view Pierce Brosnan as a quality Bond in his seven-year run, it's a greatly overlooked iteration of the agent who beats him out, according to critics. Even with four films under his belt, Brosnan stays at a distant fifth place at 60.8%, easily bested by Timothy Dalton's 76.5%. The latter appeared in two films, bringing an edge to the franchise which wouldn't be recovered until Daniel Craig took over. Both "The Living Daylights" and "Licence to Kill" were enough to put Dalton in fourth place as the best Bond per critics, with the two movies even making the top 20 of Looper's ranking of Bond films from worst to best.
That leaves the last position to tongue-in-cheek 007 extraordinaire Roger Moore, who lands as the worst official Bond in the franchise with an average critic rating of 57%. But there's also one unofficial Bond, David Niven, who starred in the 1967 spoof "Casino Royale" and was ranked well below Moore at 26% for that one movie. For now, rumors are still circulating as to who Daniel Craig's successor as the next James Bond might be, but we can only hope he finds himself at the higher end of the list when his tenure comes to an end.