Film No.: 15
Released: 1987
Votes: 27
Bond: Timothy Dalton
Why: Dalton had been up for the gig when Roger Moore got it in the early '70s, but decided he was too young for it at the time. In the late '80s, he was the second choice after Pierce Brosnan couldn't get out of his "Remington Steele" contract, but he came closest of all the film Bonds to that point (yes, including Connery) of approximating the character from Ian Fleming's novels. After a dozen years of Roger Moore's dry-verging-on-bored delivery, Dalton gave 007 back his sense of gravitas and danger. He's terrific, as are the action set pieces from beginning (Bond parachutes out of an exploding jeep as it careens off the Rock of Gibraltar) to end (Bond and a Russian assassin battle while hanging out the back of a cargo plane in mid-flight). The villains (Joe Don Baker as an American arms dealer, Jeroen Krabbé as a Soviet defector) are non-threatening cartoons, and Maryam D'Abo's cello-playing love interest is unmemorable (and their chaste courtship a clumsy reaction to the AIDS epidemic), but overall it's a very promising start to the Dalton era — one that would unfortunately be ruined by "Licence to Kill" attempting to turn Bond into the hero of a "Miami Vice" episode.

-Alan Sepinwall