We love to quibble about who best donned 007's tuxedo—whether your choice is Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, or yes, even Timothy Dalton—but we all have a favorite James Bond movie. The franchise has varied wildly over the last six decades, from 1962's Dr. No to 2021's No Time to Die, and our personal preferences for Bond portrayer, tone, style, and Bond girl has a lot to do with which of these films ends up on our best of list. But what about the worst James Bond movies? The question is subjective, of course—and we could spend the rest of the day debating it—but we can at least consult the reviews to find out the critical consensus by identifying the lowest-rated films in the series.
We consulted review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, which ranked every Bond film, and then focused on the bottom of the list to find the movies that got the most savage pans. Read on to discover which James Bond movies critics hated the most.
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12 | Live and Let Die (1973)
United ArtistsRotten Tomatoes score: 65 percent
"The comic book plot meanders through a series of hardware production numbers," Variety writes.
11 | Quantum of Solace (2008)
Sony Pictures ReleasingRotten Tomatoes score: 64 percent
"Although it's not the most crushing disappointment of all time—finding you have won the lottery but lost the ticket is probably more crushing, I imagine—it is still a crushing disappointment," writes Deborah Ross for The Spectator.
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10 | Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
United ArtistsRotten Tomatoes score: 64 percent
"Diamonds Are Foreverdoesn’t carry the same quality or flair as its many predecessors," writes Variety.
9 | Spectre (2015)
Sony Pictures ReleasingRotten Tomatoes score: 63 percent
"By the time Spectre reaches its conclusion, the backstory has become so fraught, the motives so unclear, and the layers of scheming by the villains so convoluted that it’s exhausting," writes Isaac Chotiner for Slate.
8 | Moonraker (1979)
United ArtistsRotten Tomatoes score: 60 percent
"Bond meets Star Wars in one of the series' sillier outings," writes Ian Nathan for Empire Magazine (via Rotten Tomatoes).
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7 | Die Another Day (2002)
MGMRotten Tomatoes score: 56 percent
"James Bond gets bad news in Die Another Day: They've rescinded his license to kill. The news is worse for us. They've given him license to bore," writes Joe Morgenstern for The Wall Street Journal.
6 | Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
MGMRotten Tomatoes score: 56 percent
"By sticking to the formula so religiously, Tomorrow Never Diessells itself short," writes Keith Phipps for The AV Club.
5 | The World Is Not Enough (1999)
MGMRotten Tomatoes score: 52 percent
"All right for what it is, but will the day ever come when enough is enough?" writes Marjorie Baumgarten for the Austin Chronicle.
4 | Octopussy (1983)
MGMRotten Tomatoes score: 43 percent
"Bond had degenerated into a male model, and something of a genial anachronism," writes Richard Corliss for Time (via Rotten Tomatoes).
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3 | The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)
United ArtistsRotten Tomatoes score: 39 percent
"Roger Moore's interpretation of Bond is blandness personified," writes Verina Glaessner for Time Out (via Rotten Tomatoes).
2 | A View to a Kill (1985)
MGMRotten Tomatoes score: 38 percent
"It's not double-oh-seven anymore, but double-oh-seventy, the best argument yet for the mandatory retirement age," writes Paul Attanasio for The Washington Post.
1 | Casino Royale (1967)
Columbia PicturesRotten Tomatoes score: 27 percent
"The few good aspects of this farce are vastly outweighed by the bad," writes James Berardinelli for ReelViews.
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