Film No.: 17
Released: 1995
Votes: 30
Bond: Pierce Brosnan
Why: After audiences rejected Timothy Dalton's 007 as too serious (or, at least, they had rejected his terrible second film), the franchise took a few years off to retool, by which point Brosnan — who had both the gravity of Dalton and the wit and charm of Roger Moore — was finally available to play the part. Brosnan also moves more gracefully than any previous Bond (with the possible exception of George Lazenby, who was at his best in the fight scenes), and he was exceptionally well-served by the pairing with director Martin Campbell, who placed him in one crackerjack action set piece after another. "GoldenEye" also benefits from the cast put around Brosnan, including Sean Bean as a former Double-0 gone rogue, a deliriously charismatic Famke Janssen as henchwoman Xenia Onatopp, and Judi Dench as the new M, who has very little patience for our man's extracurricular antics, but respects his skillset. I probably couldn't explain the plot of "GoldenEye" (something to do with a killer satellite, I think?), but so many individual, Bond canon-worthy sequences immediately come to mind.

-Alan Sepinwall