Last Updated on March 3, 2025

Here on James Bond Revisited, the time has come to do the impossible! We’re going to rank all of the actors who played legendary secret agent James Bond from “worst” to best. Now, bear in mind, none of the actors who ever played 007 were actually bad. In my opinion they’re all varying degrees of good. Of course, for me, being a huge James Bond fan, this list is deeply personal. Nostalgically, Roger Moore would top my list. But, analytically, I’m not so sure the same can be said. I had to take a lot of things into account for this list: length of tenure as 007, critical and fan reaction, impact on the pop culture, popularity at the box office and more. I didn’t rank folks like David Niven or Barry Nelson, who never played the official EON James Bond, so the rankings were chosen from Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. One thing I noticed was that the James Bond’s chosen by EON were all pretty-much spot on. Even the much-maligned George Lazenby is quite good in his one and only entry as James Bond. So join us for JAMES BOND ACTORS RANKED as we count down the best 007’s and let us know your opinion below! Here we go:

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to James Bond Revisited. This week, we’re going to do something a little bit different—we’re going to rank all of the actors that have played James Bond from the worst to the best. Yes, that’s right, it’s James Bond Revisited: James Bond Actors Ranked.

And of course, if we’re starting off on the worst side of the James Bond scale, we have to start with none other than the only actor to ever play James Bond only one time—George Lazenby. An Australian model, he was plucked from obscurity to star as James Bond. George Lazenby kind of sabotaged his career a little bit by badmouthing the film to the press and being incredibly difficult to work with. This ended up being a one-and-done role for him. He was apparently offered Diamonds Are Forever and turned it down, although UA president David Picker always said that Lazenby was actually not offered a second film and that the idea was always to go back to Sean Connery to reprise the role. Whatever the case, Lazenby actually is not disastrous in the lead. And it’s funny because all of the actors that played James Bond, in one way or another, are actually really good—they’re all just varying degrees of good. I would say good to great. And Lazenby, at times in the film, is really good. It has to be said— 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is probably the best James Bond movie ever made; it just happens to star arguably the worst James Bond.

Lazenby looks really good in this movie. He’s tall, he looks good in his tuxedo, although some of his clothing—such as the little orange number that he wears for a lot of the film—is a touch garish. I think I heard rumors that the costume designers of this film weren’t big fans of his and kind of made him look stupid at times. He’s tall, he’s imposing, he fights extremely well, and he looks great in all the fight scenes. And that’s actually what apparently won him the part. His chemistry with Diana Rigg isn’t great, and I think this is probably his biggest liability in the performance because you can tell that he and Diana Rigg probably just didn’t get along very well off camera. They have no chemistry, which is kind of a problem because it’s James Bond falling in love for the first time with the woman that he’s going to marry. Still, it kind of works, although you can also really tell that Lazenby is hampered by the fact that he’s dubbed for a good chunk of the film. George Baker loops his voice while Lazenby is masquerading as James Bond, playing Hilary Bray. I don’t know why they decided to do this. I think it was a really bad idea, and I think it totally messes with his performance. But I digress.

George Lazenby isn’t amazing as 007 in this movie, but he’s fine. He’s arguably just as good as Sean Connery was in Dr. No. So, who knows? If Lazenby had been able to play the character for five or six movies, he might have ended up as the greatest James Bond of all time. But alas, all we’ve got is one movie, and it’s a pretty good film. So, Lazenby is definitely the worst James Bond in that he’s the one that’s had the least effect on pop culture. But you know what? He’s still pretty good.

The second-worst James Bond of all time has got to be Pierce Brosnan. No, no, no—now hear me out. I love Pierce Brosnan. I think he’s an amazing actor, and I actually think he’s a great James Bond. If you look at Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye, wow—he’s amazing. I remember seeing this movie and being so excited for a run of Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies. Physically, he was perfect for the role. He looked great, he was a handsome bastard, looked awesome in a tuxedo, moved really well in the fight scenes, had great chemistry with all of his leading ladies, and kind of had this perfect amount of toughness and cold-bloodedness as James Bond—mixed with a sly sense of humor. He was like Sean Connery and Roger Moore being put into a blender, and out comes Pierce Brosnan. If all the movies had been as good as GoldenEye, again, he’s another one that might have been the best James Bond ever.

But man, the movies that followed GoldenEye just do not do him any favors. Tomorrow Never Dies is fun, but it’s just a bunch of non-stop action scenes. The World Is Not Enough gives him better material, but its direction is very lackluster by Michael Apted and has one of the worst villains in the franchise—Robert Carlyle’s Renard. Of course, I do love Sophie Marceau’s Elektra King, and she has really good chemistry with Brosnan, but they ruin it by bringing in Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones. It’s a movie that could have been one of the really good James Bond films but just ends up not being very good at all. And then, of course, there’s Die Another Day, which I think everybody agrees is the worst James Bond movie ever.

I feel really bad for Pierce Brosnan because he got totally screwed. The material that he was given just was no good after GoldenEye. So that leaves him, unfortunately, as the second-worst James Bond of all time.

Going up the list and getting into middle territory is, of course, Roger Moore. Roger Moore played James Bond in seven films, and I have to say, he is my nostalgic and emotional favorite. Really, there is no competition for me. If you were to ask me who my favorite James Bond is, it’s definitely Roger Moore. I grew up watching his movies as a kid, and I love him, especially Octopussy and A View to a Kill. And going back a little bit further, For Your Eyes Only. Here’s the thing, though—if I’m looking at it critically and analytically, I can’t say that Roger Moore is the best James Bond. And I can’t even say that the James Bond movies that I absolutely love him in are amazing James Bond films. It’s nostalgia. And I’m totally blinded by nostalgia. I grew up with him, and I just think he’s the best. But as James Bond, he’s kind of in the middle ground. I think he looks really good, but man, his first couple of James Bond movies are rough.

Live and Let Die, I think, is the most overrated James Bond movie ever. I know a lot of people really love this film—I don’t think it works at all. The Man with the Golden Gun is the second-worst James Bond film of all time, after Die Another Day, but I digress. His character—his “James Bond-ness”—in this movie is just awful. I mean, he plays him like such an ass. In fact, I was rooting for Francisco Scaramanga to kind of win towards the end of the movie. I really hate when he’s roughing up the girls. I don’t like him pushing the kid in the water in Thailand. Of course, Roger Moore himself also said it was probably his worst James Bond movie and that he hated doing that scene in particular. The guy ended up becoming one of the people that ran UNICEF years later, so you can tell why he probably didn’t like that film very much. He really did start to come into his own, though, when he did The Spy Who Loved Me, adopting kind of a more genial, witty, likable James Bond persona. I think it really plays well for him, and I especially like Roger Moore as he started to mature in the roles. Around the time he got to For Your Eyes Only, he wasn’t so quick to jump into bed with girls. He was a little bit more mature and world-weary—he’d seen it all, and he had almost a paternal vibe at times. I think that’s probably why I liked him so much. You know, I always looked at him as kind of a pseudo-father figure in some ways, which is definitely not how I felt about any other James Bond except for Roger Moore. I think that’s probably why he’s my favorite.

That said, he’s in the middle section of James Bonds ranked if, again, we’re going scientifically.

Now we’re getting closer to the best-ever James Bonds, and I have to say, the third-best James Bond ever, in my opinion, is definitely Timothy Dalton. Now, a lot of people would probably rank him at the bottom of this list, but they are totally wrong. Timothy Dalton’s run of James Bond movies is better than anybody’s. He was only in two of them, but man, they were two great James Bond movies. There was The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, and they are both just about perfect James Bond films.

Licence to Kill, of course, totally departs from the formula and is kind of a rougher, tougher, ’80s-style action movie. But he really does feel like James Bond throughout the whole movie, so it’s kind of cool to plop James Bond in this kind of Miami Vice-style universe. I really liked it, and I thought that, again, Timothy Dalton does a really good job playing up kind of a sadistic, cruel streak in his James Bond—but also still making him likable and palatable. There’s a great scene in Licence to Kill where he uses a harpoon to kill the guy that just killed Frank McRae’s Sharky. Apparently, in the work print of this movie, there’s a scene where Timothy Dalton just cackles maniacally after doing this, which I think probably would have been too much. But Dalton really didn’t care if you didn’t like him as James Bond—he wanted to play James Bond in an authentic, Ian Fleming-esque way, and I think that he really did succeed. Unfortunately, audiences in the 1980s just were not ready or interested in this kind of James Bond. They were accustomed to Roger Moore, they wanted somebody lighter, and they loved Pierce Brosnan. Even though Pierce Brosnan’s movies weren’t the best, he’s probably still one of the highest-grossing James Bond actors of all time. So Timothy Dalton got the short end of the stick, unfortunately. I think if he had come along 20 years later, the appetite for him would have been much better. In fact, what Daniel Craig is doing now was arguably pioneered by Timothy Dalton.

So we’re getting to the second-best James Bond actor of all time, and it’s probably Daniel Craig. Now, Daniel Craig is hit-or-miss as James Bond—not all of his movies are great. It’s weird because all of the odd-numbered James Bond movies that he’s in are really good. Casino Royale is maybe the best James Bond movie ever after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I mean, it’s a wonderful film, and his physical performance and emotional performance in the movie are great. His chemistry with Eva Green is amazing, and it has great villains. He’s just the perfect James Bond and probably should have been nominated for an Academy Award. It’s one of the best-ever performances as James Bond that we’ve ever gotten. But Quantum of Solace just doesn’t live up to it, although I still think he’s quite good. Again, he’s amazing in Skyfall because he’s got the material, but then Spectre is a little bit more assembly-line. So he’s hit-or-miss, but man, when he is good, he is the best. So Daniel Craig is my second-favorite James Bond actor of all time.

Which, of course, brings us to number one. And really, who else could it be but Sean Connery? I used to always tell people: Other actors played James Bond. Sean Connery was James Bond. And I don’t mean that he was a global super spy that was running around sleeping with women and saving the world. Well, okay—maybe he was a global actor that ran around sleeping with women, but I don’t think he ever saved the world. Now, Roger Moore played Bond arguably more times in official movies, but Sean Connery’s run as James Bond was long—six official EON James Bond films, plus the unofficial Never Say Never Again, which ties him with Roger Moore at seven films. Sean Connery really is just the one that established the mold. He was the first actor to play James Bond, and all of the James Bond ticks that we identify with the character now are things that Connery came up with. He looks amazing in a tuxedo. He’s tough. He can handle himself well in a fight. But he’s also suave and sophisticated and seductive. He’s got this kind of menacing way of talking to the villains but then almost purring to the women. You know, he has this cat-like grace, also—which I don’t think a lot of people remark on—but he moves so well. You know, he looks like he’s just this guy in his physical prime who is running the world, right? I mean, his James Bond could take over the world. He is just the most confident action star of all time, and in fact, the prototypical action star, if you ask me.

Dr. No is a bit of a hit-or-miss film, but Sean Connery comes right out of the gate swinging. From Russia with Love—he’s perfected. Goldfinger is amazing. But as we start to get to his middle run, Sean Connery started to put on a little bit of weight and started to get a little bit tired of the role. He sleepwalks a little bit in Thunderball and You Only Live Twice. And the less said about him in Diamonds Are Forever, where he’s totally out of shape and obviously doesn’t give a damn anymore, the better. But he comes back swinging in Never Say Never Again. And when Sean Connery wanted to be James Bond, he was the best James Bond ever. I really don’t think anybody is ever gonna beat him, no matter who they choose to play James Bond after Daniel Craig sips his last vodka martini—shaken, not stirred—and hangs up his tuxedo.

So those are my rankings of all the James Bond actors. Of course, I’m sure that everybody’s got their own order, so please let me know in the talkbacks what you think.