For someone who grew up during the Pierce Brosnan era and with a father who owned the Sean Connery movies, Roger Moore fell by the wayside. To me, Connery is the classic Bond, Brosnan is the smooth, debonair Bond, and Craig is the gritty, more grounded Bond. I always had this unfounded perception of Roger Moore that he was kind of a joke, despite never watching any of his movies all the way through. After experiencing all seven of his movies in a span of two weeks, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While he is definitely not my favorite portrayal of Bond, I have gained a greater appreciation for his interpretation of the character. Even with some eye rolls, bad characters, and ridiculous moments, I still found myself thoroughly enjoying his performance and the tone of some of his movies. After much contemplation, here is the list of every Roger Moore Bond movie ranked from his worst to his best. Minor spoilers ahead.
As Roger Moore’s seventh and last outing as Bond, this makes the bottom of the list. I don’t hate this movie. There is fun to be had with it given the right attitude and expectations. With Moore at age 57, this marks the oldest actor to ever portray Bond. Christopher Walken is having fun in his role as the villain Max Zorin, a greedy businessman wanting to wipe out Silicon Valley to have the microchip market for himself. Not the best villain or plot of the franchise, but there are some great stunts and set pieces to enjoy. Grace Jones as May Day is a mixed bag. Her motives for sleeping with Bond and sacrificing herself at the end just don’t add up. Tanya Roberts as the Bond girl is stale and uninteresting. Moore’s age was also distracting at times, as he himself later stated that he should have passed on the torch for this one. A Beach Boys song ends up ruining a pretty decent ski chase in the cold open, and May Day assassinates a man at a dinner party by swinging a fish hook in is face. Amidst the silliness of it all, Zorin has a rather dark scene where he murders around one hundred innocent people in cold blood with an Uzi, and then drowns them in a mine. This doesn’t mesh well with the lighter and more silly tone of the rest of the film. The weak plot and tonal problems topped off with a tired, older Bond made this my least favorite of Moore’s outings as 007.
As Moore’s first appearance as Bond, I am surprised that this fell so low on my list. Bond investigates the deaths of several British agents which leads him to New Orleans where he discovers a heroin operation ran by Mr. Big. It’s clear that this was heavily influenced by the Blaxploitation era of 70s cinema, as it is dominated by a black cast along with the first Bond girl to be played by a black actress. The infamous Baron Samedi is a fun, over-the-top villain sidekick who I wish had a little more screen time. Jane Seymour is stunning and well-cast as Solitaire, a tarot card reader who can predict the future. Paul McCartney also brings us one of the best Bond songs in the franchise. My biggest issue with this film is its lack of action set pieces and its boring, slow-moving story line. The biggest action set piece of the film is a boat chase that seemed to drag on for minutes on end and lacked any sense of urgency. This scene also introduced us to who I believe to be one of the worst characters the Bond franchise has ever seen – Sheriff J.W. Pepper. He is an obnoxious, over-the-top policeman who is trying to apprehend Bond during the boat chase for causing destruction to the town. The amount of screen time that is given to his character is unforgivable. What is even more unfortunate is the fact that this is not the last the franchise will see of J.W. Pepper. This movie is rather forgettable. Baron Samedi and Solitaire are more memorable than Bond and Mr. Big, who both have significantly more screen time. Moore seems as though he is trying to navigate his way through his interpretation of the character and the pacing of the film suffered overall. Moore saw better days in other outings as Bond.
5. Moonraker
This was the most financially successful Bond film until Goldeneye. It is clear that the producers took note of the success of Star Wars and implemented a space theme for this outing, and it certainly paid off at the box office. Ironically, one of the biggest aspects of this movie that doesn’t work for me is the space sequence itself. Bond investigates the hijacking of a space shuttle, leading him to discover a plot hatched by Hugo Drax to commit global genocide. The first two acts of this movie are solid. I liked Drax as a villain and some of the scenes he shares with Bond are some of my favorite moments. Lois Chiles plays Dr. Holly Goodhead. Yes, that is her name. She is not given much to do and didn’t add much to the story. The infamous metal-mouthed Jaws returns in this film for the worse. His appearance in this should have been limited to the opening scene, or taken out entirely. He falls in love with a woman and ends up siding with Bond in the end. No one was asking for his character arc and it is silly regardless. The last thirty minutes or so take place on Drax’s space station where an all-out laser battle takes place. While there is room to have fun with the end sequence, it just fell apart for me. The space battle is lame and strays too far from the tone that comes before it. If not for Jaws and the ridiculous space sequence, this may have ended up higher on my list. Not Moore’s worst Bond film, but far from his best.
This Bond film goes down as having the worst cold open of any other film in the franchise. Bond is seen visiting his ex wife’s grave where Blofeld then attempts to kill him with a remote-control helicopter. While the actual sequence provides for good stunt work, it is a ridiculous sequence and has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Luckily, the remainder of the film is saved by some of the best action sequences and stunt work in any of Moore’s Bond films. Bond sets out in a race against the Russians to recover a communication device that lies at the bottom of the ocean in a sunken British spy ship. Along the way he runs into Melina Havelock, a woman who is out for revenge against the people who killed her parents. As I mentioned, the strong points of the movie lie in the action sequences. There is an incredible rock climbing sequence, a motorcycle/ski chase down a mountain, a helicopter stunt, and a car and boat chase. The music choice for some of these chase scenes feel like B-movie action music, which really puts a damper on the intensity of each one. Moore has a great moment where he kicks a teetering car off of a mountain with a bad guy in it, revealing the more brutal and merciless side to his character for a change. Melina as the Bond girl is a great character, but she is significantly hindered by the acting chops of Carole Bouquet. The under-age Russian ice skater was nothing but an annoying distraction as well. Also, the climax of the movie is a big let down because neither Bond nor Melina ends up killing Kristatos, the main villain of the film. I would’ve liked to have at least seen Melina complete her arc and get her revenge. Despite its shortcomings, this film deserves high praise for its action set pieces and well-paced story.
3. Octopussy
If someone pitched me the idea of Bond dressing up as a clown to infiltrate a circus as a key part of the story, I would’ve laughed in their face. Yes, Bond dresses up as a clown, is apparently a tiger whisperer, and can scream like Tarzan while swinging on vines. All of these elements, while ridiculous, were outweighed by a great story and did not prevent me from enjoying this movie. Bond investigates the murder of 009, who was found holding a priceless Faberge egg. The egg is sold at an auction to Kamal Kahn, who is suspected to be involved with the Russians. Bond discovers an international jewel-smuggling operation headed by Octopussy, played by the wonderful Maud Adams. Bond finds out that Kahn has plans of his own to fund a terrorist bombing of a U.S. air force base to hopefully trigger World War III. The film has one of my favorite opening sequences of the entire Moore era. The film opens with Bond on the tail-end of a mission in Latin America where he attempts to blow up a radar system at a military base. The whole sequence is fun and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The chase on top of the train and Bond hanging off the side of a plane in the climax really stand out as some of the most riveting, and well-shot action sequences in the series. But what really pulled me in are the scenes in between the action set pieces. The scenes that Bond shares with Kahn and Octopussy kept me thoroughly engaged. I cared about where the story was going to go and I kept second-guessing myself about who was on whose side. Maud Adams was a much-welcomed surprise and is the only actress to play a different Bond girl in two separate movies. She plays an interesting character that has a strong presence and shares great chemistry with Bond. Despite this being Roger Moore’s sixth outing as an older Bond, it has just about everything I want out of a Bond movie.
2. The Man with the Golden Gun
Christopher Lee is known to younger generations for his role as Count Dooku and Saruman, but let us not forget that he also brought us one of the greatest villains of the entire Bond franchise. Bond investigates the death of a scientist whose murder is linked to Francisco Scaramanga, a deadly assassin that charges $1 million a shot using a unique golden gun. During the investigation he discovers that the scientist had access to a solar cell that could prove to be dangerous if found in the wrong hands. But even worse, he thinks that he might be Scaramanga’s next target. This is one of the few movies where the villain is on par with Bond’s skill set and poses a very real and direct threat to him. Most villains generally have some outrageous plan to take over half of the world and hire henchmen to do all of their dirty work. Here, Scaramanga IS the threat and is willing to get his hands dirty. Knik Knak is a fun character and works great as Scaramanga’s sidekick. Britt Ekland plays Bond’s love interest as Mary Goodnight, definitely one of the weaker Bond girls in the franchise. Fortunately, Maud Adams gets some screen time as Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s love interest. Adams once again proves to have what it takes to be a great on-screen presence. But for all of the good this film has to offer, it is not without its flaws. One the greatest car stunts in the franchise is practically ruined by an awful sound effect. Even the sound editor later stated that he regretted putting it in the film. Sheriff J.W. Pepper is back for more as easily the worst, most unnecessary character of the franchise. Scaramanga also has a distinctive feature of having a third nipple, which Bond uses at one point to infiltrate an enemy compound. Not really a flaw, but definitely silly. There is also a kung fu undertone in the movie that is definitely trying to appeal to the Enter the Dragon fans at the time. This also isn’t exactly a negative, but it also doesn’t play to the film’s strong points either. Despite its misgivings, this movie gave us the golden gun (the greatest movie prop of the franchise) as well as the greatest Bond villain. I really enjoyed this outing as Bond but if it lacked anything, it was more Scaramanga.
This is where it all comes together. As Moore’s third outing as Bond, this is easily the most grounded of his movies and it finally seems like he has settled into the character. Bond investigates the disappearance of a Royal Navy submarine holding sixteen nuclear warheads. The Russians send their own agent to join Bond on the investigation, Agent XXX, played by the incomparable Barbara Bach. What they don’t know is that Bond has killed her lover on a previous mission, sparking some unsurfaced tension between them. The two work together in their own government’s interest to track down Karl Stromberg, the web-handed mastermind who plans to use the nuclear warheads for all the wrong reasons. There is no question that Barbara Bach plays the best Bond girl of the Roger Moore outings, and one of the best of the entire franchise. She constantly is shown to have the upper hand on Bond and their back and forth was charming. Because she is a Russian agent, I was always left second-guessing her motives up until the last scene of the movie. It is refreshing to see a Bond girl who plays his equal. This is also the first time we see some continuity in the franchise between different Bond actors when Bond mentions the fact that he was married once, referring to the final scene of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The metal-mouthed ‘Jaws’ makes his first appearance here and turns out to be one of the more memorable and iconic Bond villains. The cold open has a fantastic ski chase where Bond parachutes off of a mountain. The film also contains a beautiful score composed by Marvin Hamlisch that adds a lot to the movie, particularly in the location-shots. Stromberg isn’t anything special as the villain, but he checks all the right boxes – he has a master plan to blow up half the world and kills his victims by feeding them to the sharks. The action sequences were fun and were accompanied by some memorable gadgets, specifically the submarine car. I cannot emphasize enough how effective Bach’s character is. She brings out the best in Roger Moore and encapsulates everything that a Bond girl should do. It was obvious to me after the credits were rolling that this is everything a Roger Moore Bond movie should be. This is easily his best outing as Bond and stands out as one of my favorite films of the franchise. It proves that despite the sillier aspects of his other movies, Roger Moore has what it takes to carry the mantle of 007.
