Roger Moore’s James Bond Movies Ranked
The second actor to play James Bond was Roger Moore. So today I’m going to be ranking all 7 of Roger Moore’s James Bond movies. I already did this with Sean Connery, and Dalton/Lazenby will be coming next then after it’ll be Pierce Brosnan. Then I’ll be ranking all 25 of the James Bond movies. But today we are talking about Roger Moore. Let’s get started!
7. Octopussy: Quite possibly the weirdest title of a James Bond movie. And this is a movie that didn’t work on any of the levels that it was going for. Right off the bat, Roger Moore was in his early 50s when he did this movie. Which a 50 year old Bond hooking up with a woman 15 years younger then he is gets pretty weird. And when he’s just hooking up with a woman when he’s 52 years old it doesn’t feel right. 52 year old people shouldn’t be doing this. They wasted the potential of exploring an aging James Bond or match the Bond girl to be closer to Bond’s age. Plus, there way too much of this movie is set at the circus and it just doesn’t work at all for me. None of it is interesting or exciting to me. James Bond takes out a bomb where a clown costume with make-up, it’s really goofy for my taste. Plus, the Bond girl of this movie whose name is Octopussy is really annoying and doesn’t work at all for me. So easily, this is the bottom of the barrell when it comes to James Bond movies and certainly of Roger Moore’s tenure as the character.
6. Live and Let Die: Roger Moore’s first outing as James Bond is a pretty mediocre one. Now I think that Moore is giving one of his better performances as the character in this movie. He’s charming in the role and is doing his best to make a good first impression with the audience as the character. The villains of the movie were a lot of fun and brought a lot of energy to the movie. And some of the chases in the finale of he movie are pretty good and exciting. But I think that the way that Bond is written in this movie is very manipulative…and not in the good way. He hooks up with this girl that is in her early 20s and tricks her with tarot cards into sleeping with her…and he takes her virginity. It’s weird and then after they make love they start talking about for like 30 seconds, it’s weird and doesn’t work for me. And the hillbilly cop in the finale of the movie was super annoying and didn’t work for me. Just in general, this is a good enough start to Roger Moore’s tenure as the character.
5. Moonraker: This movie was not originally planned but after the success of Star Wars and Strange Encounters of the Third Kind, they wanted a Bond movie set in space. Thus we got Moonraker. Roger Moore’s 4th movie as James Bond. And there is some fun in seeing Bond defeating Lord Drax and Jaws in space, it adds a nice novelty to it. And it does embrace the goofiness of James Bond in space. But even before Bond gets to space it is a fun adventure with Jaws chasing Bond, his lady friend. Maybe this was my expectations set differently, but I wanted Bond to get to space sooner. I didn’t realize that Bond only goes into space in the final 30 minutes of the movie. I thought there was going to be a 20 minute prolog of setting things up, and then the last 90 minutes was going to be Bond in space. I was a bit disappointed by that because that’s whole gimmick of this movie is seeing Bond in space. This movie it’s fine, it’s fun enough. It’s memorable enough but this is one that isn’t a top tier Roger Moore movie for me.
4. The Man With the Golden Gun: I know this one seems to be widely regarded as one of Moore’s weaker movies, but for me I liked it. I thought that Christopher Lee (RIP) was great as the villain, he had built a career around playing villains and he brings his talents to the screen. And I just like the fact that we get a more traditional Bond third act on an island inside of the villain’s secret liar. We’ve seen it done before, but here it was done well. Also, I think the song “The Man With the Golden Gun” by Lulu is a pretty catchy song with a catchy tone to it. But this movie does make some mistakes along the way. First up, Goodnight is not a good Bond girl. The way she is written is to progress some conflict in the third act of the movie and that’s not good. And she just felt so forced into the script like the writers forgot about including a Bond girl, and so just made easy changes to add her into the movie. And the tone of this movie is a bit weird, because some of the things with Chrisotoper Lee are pretty serious, but then you get a car spinning around and making a side whistle noise. In general, this is a good movie that I had fun with.
3. A View to A Kill: Now I know that this movie seems to be on the lower half of most people's rankings of the Roger Moore era of Bond movies. But as for me, I liked this movie and liked a number of things in this movie. First up, Christopher Walken as Max Zorin is great casting. He’s just great at playing villains and he brings all of his talents to this movie. And in general it is a more fun James Bond movie, it’s unassuming. It doesn’t have a lot of emotional weight going on in this movie. Plus, the Bond song by Duran Duran is really catchy and one of the best Bond songs in my opinion. And since we are in the mid-80s the action here is getting a lot bigger and better. But when this movie came out Roger Moore was 58 years old and he looked old. He looks more like somebody’s dad, not a spy working for the British. And the Bond Girl here is 28 years old, 30 years younger than he is. So I think this is Moore’s weakest performance as the character.
2. For Your Eyes Only: A much deeper movie than I was expecting it to be. The previous four Roger Moore James Bond movies seem to focus more on the womanizer side of the character. But with this movie it starts off with Bond visiting the grave of his wife, so it’s a deeper movie like I said. From there, I think that Roger Moore gives one of best performances as James Bond. Since it is a deeper movie he has to act a little bit more in this movie. So you do see more of his acting chops come out and are front and center. Also, the last 30-45 minutes of the movie I found to be pretty effective and was handled very well. Now this is one of the better Roger Moore Bond movies, there are some issues here. First up, Bibi Dahl the young ice skater in the movie is really annoying and her relationship with Bond is really weird. Because she is very clearly like half of his age, but she want to have sex with him. It’s really weird and not the best plot point in a movie. So this is a good but not great James Bond movie.
1. The Spy Who Loved Me: For me this was just a very solid Bond outing with Roger Moore in the lead. I think the whole story here was interesting with Bond and Anya (Bond Girl) traveling the world to stop the villain from blowing up New York City. It’s stuff that we have seen before in a Bond movie but here it was done well. And I do think that Anya is one of the stronger Bond girls out there because we spend time with her and she ties into the plot of the movie. She’s not just a pretty face that Bond is looking to bang. And also I think that Roger Moore is giving a solid performance as the character. And some of the action in this movie is really cool with the ski chase being the stand out here. If I had to say some things that bugged me, the film can feel a bit clunky at points in time. Because a larger portion of this movie is Bond and Anya going here learning information which leads them here. And it does that a bit, but in general this is a movie that I really did enjoy and one of the stronger from Moore’s time as the character.
There you have it, my ranking of the 7 Roger Moore James Bond movies. Which one is your favorite? Thanks for reading!
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