Casino Royale Judi Dench

Casino Royale (2006) Judi Dench as M. M: sees Bond sitting by her computer in her apartment You've got a bloody cheek! James Bond: Sorry. I'll shoot the camera first next time. Casino Royale (2006) 358 of 363 Judi Dench, Simon Abkarian, Ade, Urbano Barberini, Tom Chadbon, Tsai Chin, Jesper Christensen, Daniel Craig, Giancarlo Giannini, Ludger Pistor, Richard Sammel, Claudio Santamaria, Clemens Schick, Darwin Shaw, Jeffrey Wright, Caterina Murino, Eva Green, and Sebastien Foucan in Casino Royale (2006).

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“Spectre,” Daniel Craig’s fourth (and possibly final) James Bond film, hits theaters Friday, and a few common themes have emerged from the reviews so far: First, that this is a highly serviceable Bond movie. Second, that it’s no “Skyfall.” And lastly, that director Sam Mendes takes great pains to ponder whether Bond — spy, womanizer, Cold Warrior — and all of his timeworn tropes are still compatible with audiences in 2015.

We can sympathize with that last one. (There’s a reason many of the classic Bond movies haven’t exactly aged well.) And we’re all for big franchises taking chances in departing from familiar patterns. But with a run spanning 24 films over 53 years, Bond is the most prolific franchise in movie history. Its format has been so refined over the decades that there’s an 8,500-word Wikipedia page devoted strictly to its motifs. As much as anything, the Bond series is defined by the very tropes that today’s directors spend so much time grappling with.

Instead of denying them, then, let’s celebrate the ones worth preserving. When at their most fun and engaging, the Bond films are about a debonair hero outfitted with insane tech, saving humanity from the convoluted plots of over-the-top supervillains and their hench-persons.

Judi Dench Wikipedia

So we set about trying to (quasi) scientifically determine which of those elements — Bond actors, MI-6 colleagues, gadgets, plotlines and enemies — from past Bond movies are the best, in the hopes of eventually cracking the code that makes the most awesome Bond possible.

Today, we’ll talk about the building blocks of a great Bond movie by running down our rankings in each category. But first, here’s how the rankings were created. Like when we determined the sexiest and smartest Matt Damons, we set up a series of randomly generated “matchups” between items in a given category, asking the public to vote for the superior option in each instance. In all, our matchups received more than 70,000 votes, providing us with ample data with which to compute rankings within each category using a system known as maximum likelihood. (To be clear, this isn’t a random sample. We solicited votes on Twitter, so we can pretty much guarantee that our respondents are not representative of the U.S. population as a whole.)

For the uninitiated, maximum likelihood attempts to find a rating for every item in a category that best explains the results of the voting. So if, say, the cutter/detonator wristwatch is often considered more useful than other gadgets, it will receive a strong rating to reflect the high likelihood that a subsequent voter would choose it in any given matchup.

One of the cool things about maximum likelihood ratings is that they can be converted to a 0-100 (percentage) scale that reflects the probability of being selected over an average item in their category. So, below, we’ll be ranking everything, from handsome Bonds to explosive plots, using that metric.

But enough about how we calculated things. Let’s get to the rankings!

THE SEXIEST JAMES BONDS

The guy in the tuxedo holding the martini is, unsurprisingly, an essential building block for any Bond film. And the people have spoken: Sean Connery in “Goldfinger” reigns supreme. But it’s not a runaway victory by any means — Craig in “Skyfall” is right on his heels. In fact, the results of our poll are striking — each of the top nine slots on the list belongs to Connery or Craig. And on average, Craig’s films feature a higher “Bond sexiness” factor, although Connery is a fraction of a point behind (in twice as many films). Let’s call it a tie between the two most physically impressive Bonds. Behind them, the consensus ordering is clear: Pierce Brosnan, then Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and everyone’s punching-bag Bond, George Lazenby.

THE BEST MI-6 COLLEAGUES

Of course, 007 would be nothing without the support of his associates in Her Majesty’s Secret Service — or at least, the plot of our hypothetical Bond movie would be missing some pretty well-known early sequences. Just like with our sexy Bonds, there are two clear-cut favorites among Bond’s co-workers: Judi Dench’s version of M, 007’s commanding officer at MI-6, and fan favorite Desmond Llewelyn’s portrayal of Q, the team’s resident source of gadgets and comic relief. Meanwhile, John Cleese’s Q and Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny lead a moderately rated group chasing the distant honor of third place. (In our opinion, Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny is underrated here; then again, she did shoot Bond off a train, causing him to fall 100 feet to his apparent watery death.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBOeGwk0BhA

THE BEST GADGETS

As this exhaustive list of contraptions shows, gadgetry is a pretty important part of any Bond movie. Harking back to our Cold War-era love of spies, science and hiding guns and cameras just about everywhere, 007 has to be outfitted with the latest in weird, preferably explosive technology.

Our voters liked the aforementioned cutter/detonator wristwatch from “Die Another Day,” as well as the (presumably different?) wristwatch equipped with a grappling hook and high-intensity torch from “The World Is Not Enough.” And what self-respecting double-naught spy wouldn’t make good use of the attaché briefcase in “From Russia With Love” (containing a knife and sniper rifle, 50 gold sovereigns and a gas bomb to prevent tampering)?

Among the least-valuable gadgets, our betting favorite before voting had to be the prosthetic third nipple that Bond used to impersonate Scaramanga in “The Man With The Golden Gun.” But for us — two children of the 1990s — the voters provided an even more hilarious answer for “most useless piece of technology”: a pager. (MI-6 used it to contact Bond in “From Russia With Love.”)

BOND’S BEST ACHIEVEMENTS IN SPYCRAFT

Saving the (Western) world is pretty much what MI-6 pays Bond to do, but which time required the greatest degree of spycraft, skill and resourcefulness? Our voters had two main contenders: “GoldenEye,” in which 007 thwarted a plan to steal money from the Bank of England (electronically), erase financial records and destroy Britain’s economy,It helps when your enemy refuses to kill you at every possible opportunity.

THE BEST VILLAINOUS HENCH-PEOPLE

Here’s how a James Bond movie works: After an implausible escape from what should have been certain death, 007 mounts a final attack on the supervillain in his secret lair. But before defeating the Big Bad, he has to fight that scoundrel’s second-in-command. And among those evil lieutenants, our voters thought two stood out in particular: The hat-tossing Oddjob from “Goldfinger” and the hulking Jaws, who appeared in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker.” They’re great picks; each provided the Bond franchise with some of its most memorable fight scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDDjxa7RsKg

But apparently readers didn’t think as highly of this scene from “For Your Eyes Only” — they rated its henchman, Apostis, as the worst of the Bond films, effectively throwing another piton into his chest as he tumbles off the side of a metaphorical mountain.

THE BEST ARCHVILLAINS

Every great Bond film needs a great villain. Well, maybe. Crunching the numbers on every movie in the Bond franchise found that there’s only a moderate correlationFor those interested, the exact correlation coefficient is 0.4.

Meanwhile, the bottom of the list reinforces how little our voters cared for “The Living Daylights”; the aforementioned rogue Soviet general, Koskov, ranks second-to-last — presumably for devising a plot that required so little spycraft from Bond. And bringing up the very rear is General Medrano, a co-villain from “Quantum of Solace” who isn’t even killed by Bond. When faced with a choice between Medrano and an average villain, maximum likelihood tells us there’s only a 5.6 percent chance a voter would pick Medrano.

As for “Spectre,” it’s early to say where its components will fall in our rankings. (Since voting closed before the film opened, we didn’t include it in any of the categories.) The early reviews on Christoph Waltz as the villain Oberhauser have been good, and it’s a good bet that Craig will look like a million bucks. But perhaps the next Bond film — whoever is in the lead role — can take a cue from our voting and learn which combination of parts make for the best of everything 007.

Casino Royale Judi Dench Hot

• “- Vesper Lynd: Am I going to have a problem with you, Bond?
  - James Bond: No, don't worry, you're not my type.
  - Vesper Lynd: Smart?
  - James Bond: Single.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “Any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation, and to judge the situation dispassionately. I need to know that I can trust you, and that you know who to trust...and since I don't know that, I need you out of my sight.”Dame Judi Dench - M

• “Take the next one. There isn't enough space for me and your ego.”Eva Green - Vesper Lynd

• “Money isn't as valuable to our organization as knowing who to trust.”
  - Mr. White

• “It's not only the immediate agony, but the knowledge... that if you do not yield soon enough... there will be little left to identify you as a man.”
  - Le Chiffre

• “- Vesper Lynd: I can't resist waking you. Every time I do, you look at me as if you hadn't seen me in years. Makes me feel reborn.
  - James Bond: If you had just been born, wouldn't you be naked?”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “You think of women as disposable pleasures, rather than meaningful pursuits.”Eva Green - Vesper Lynd

• “You lost because of your ego, and that same ego can't take it! That's what this is all about. All you're going to do now is lose more.”Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “- Vesper Lynd: You can switch off so easily, can't you? It doesn't bother you? Killing those people?
  - James Bond: Well I wouldn't be very good at my job if it did.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “Arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand in hand.”Dame Judi Dench - M

• “- Steven Obanno: Do you believe in God, Mr. Le Chiffre?
  - Le Chiffre: No. I believe in a reasonable rate of return.”
  - Steven Obanno
  - Le Chiffre

• “- James Bond: Your beauty's a problem. You worry you won't be taken seriously.
  - Vesper Lynd: Which one can say of any attractive woman with half a brain.”
  Daniel Craig - James Bond
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd

• “Why is it that people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?”
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “Sometimes we pay so much attention to our enemies, we forget to watch our friends as well.”
  Dame Judi Dench - M

• “- Vesper Lynd: You love me?
  - James Bond: Enough to travel the world with you until one of us has to take an honest job... which I think is going to have to be you, because I have no idea what an honest job is.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “Being dead does not mean one cannot be helpful.”
  Giancarlo Giannini - Rene Mathis

• “- Vesper Lynd: So you're telling me its a matter of probability and chance. I was worried there wasn't chance involved.
  - James Bond: Well, usually the player with the best hand wins.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “In poker you never play your hand. You play the man across from you.”
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “Just because you've done something doesn't mean you have to keep doing it.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd

• “- Vesper Lynd: You're not going to let me in there, are you? You've got your armour back on. That's that.
  - James Bond: I have no armour left. You've stripped it from me. Whatever is left of me - whatever is left of me - whatever I am - I'm yours.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “- James Bond: Dry Martini.
  - Bartender: Oui, monsieur.
  - James Bond: Wait... three measures of Gordon's; one of vodka; half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it over ice, and add a thin slice of lemon peel.”
  Daniel Craig - James Bond
  - Bartender

• “- Vesper Lynd: Does everyone have a tell?
  - James Bond: Yes. Everyone. Everyone except you. I wonder if that's why I love you.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “- Vesper Lynd: I'm afraid I'm a complicated woman.
  - James Bond: That is something to be afraid of.”
  Eva Green - Vesper Lynd
  Daniel Craig - James Bond

• “- James Bond: Vodka-martini.
  - Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
  - James Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?”Daniel Craig - James Bond
  - Bartender

• “I won't consider myself to be in trouble until I start weeping blood.”
  Daniel Craig - James Bond