The 5 Most Underrated James Bond Movies to Watch on MGM+

Once upon a time, with way too much time on my hands, I was living in a beach town in the dead of winter. No particular mega-fan of the franchise, I’d seen some of the James Bond movies over the years, especially from the Pierce Brosnan era, but I hadn’t seen most of them.

And so with a smattering of subscriptions to TV streaming services, I decided I’d survive winter by watching every 007 movie chronologically. It wasn’t as hard as saving the world. It wasn’t all that easy either, since I had to sometimes wait for the next one to become available.

You can skip that whole song and dance, beginning June 1, when the entire collection of 25 EON-produced James Bond films becomes available on the network. Yes, yes, it’s one more service to sign up for. It’s not terribly expensive when compared to the rest, though, at $7 per month or $59 per year if you sign up for an annual plan.

Nothing’s stopping you from subscribing for a month or two to speed through all the best films and then canceling, too.

MGM+ Is Adding the Entire James Bond Collection. Here Are 5 You Should Watch First.

Being that I’m highlighting underrated films for this nicer half of the article, I’m excluding fantastic entries in the franchise that are already highly praised, such as Goldfinger and Casino Royale (2006).

1. Diamonds Are Forever

After swearing off the role of James Bond, which he’d grown to hate, Sean Connery was coaxed back for one last 007 film in 1971, a break in the continuity after George Lazenby had put out a single performance as Bond in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Most of the franchise’s globe-hopping is missing from this film, as it’s set mostly in and around Las Vegas. But Bond works in the glitzy grime of early 1970s Vegas, and Connery’s more world-weary take on Bond, which may have been real and not acting, holds up well after more than 50 years. Don’t skip this one.

2. Thunderball

Here’s where things began to get really weird with the Bond franchise. It was only the fourth film, and yeah, the previous year’s Goldfinger introduced the murder lasers and a man with metal teeth who killed people with a hat, but the crux of that film rested upon a fairly believable story about stealing the US government’s gold.

Everything gets just a bit kookier for Thunderball, in which large parts of the movie are filmed underwater. The scope feels bigger, the set more expansive, and it doesn’t get the love that it deserves. It’s pure 1965.

3. Licence to Kill

Timothy Dalton only starred as Bond in two movies, but they’re both great (the other is The Living Daylights). In Licence to Kill, Bond’s suspended from MI6 and goes rogue. It’s a grim, dirty film that I find a refreshing change from the zany, often tongue-in-cheek Roger Moore films, although Moore’s got some hidden bangers among his seven films.

More than any other Bond actor (prior to Daniel Craig, at least), Dalton approached every scene as if he were just utterly pissed off at and sick of the world, which always seemed to me very appropriate for a man who’s world consists of lies, betrayals, and working alongside allies who can be as nasty as the villains.

4. From Russia With Love

Only the second movie in the franchise, the follow-up to 1962’s Dr. No occupies a unique niche in the lineup. Its story is a bit grander than Dr. No, but it’s without all the gadgetry and Bond Girl puns that MGM began to pepper in with 1964’s Goldfinger.

From Russia With Love feels just a tad darker and more serious than any of the follow-up films during the 1960s, a relic of when Bond films were big-budget films, sure, but not yet the overinflated cultural mega-franchise they’d very soon become.

5. Goldeneye

If you’re a Millennial, like me, then you probably wouldn’t count this 1995 entry as underrated. We all grew up thinking it was pretty great, helped along partly by the equally sweet Nintendo 64 game. But it doesn’t seem to get the accolades it deserves ever since Daniel Craig took over.

Easily the best of Brosnan’s four Bond films, you also get Sean Bean as an excellent Foil. MGM nailed the mood with this one, as even though Bond is yet again saving the world, the stakes are more personal, with themes of trust and betrayal haunting two men as they find themselves unable to escape their pasts.