USA TODAY International Edition
Remembering 007: Ranking Roger Moore’s Bond movies
Roger Moore seemed like more of a lover than a fighter as James Bond, but on his watch, 007 was always a gentleman.
Taking over the role from Sean Connery, Moore, who died Tuesday at age 89, played the consummate British secret agent in seven films in the 1970s and ’ 80s before handing the keys to the franchise to Timothy Dalton. For the earliest Gen Xers, he was the suavest of Bonds, with a way with the ladies and an air of cool even when presented with hugely dangerous situations.
Here are all seven of Moore’s Bond performances, ranked by USA TODAY’s Brian Truitt.
1 FOR YOUR EYES ONLY ( 1981)
Who else but Bond is going to get the call when a British ship is sunk and its nuclear missile command system goes missing? The secret agent’s Greek ally Aristotle Kristatos ( Julian Glover) is first a pal and later the movie’s primary big bad, trying to sell the important device to the Soviets, and Bond pairs with Melina Havelock ( Carole Bouquet), a lady out for revenge against her parents’ killer. Serious stuff abounds but it’s got some camp, too, like the best Moore flicks: Bond flirts with an ice- skating prodigy ( Lynn- Holly Johnson), then is attacked in the rink by hockey goons and commandeers a Zamboni just in time.
2THE SPY WHO LOVED ME ( 1977)
Bond and Jaws didn’t always see eye to eye — especially not when they’re trying to kill each other on a train in one of Moore’s all- time best action scenes. Spy found Bond romancing Russian agent Anya Amasova ( Barbara Bach) on the pair’s mission to foil anarchist shipping tycoon Karl Stromberg ( Curd Jürgens), who has designs on making British and Russian submarines launch nukes that would take out Moscow and New York City.
3MOONRAKER ( 1979)
Simple globetrotting wasn’t good enough for this picture: Moore went intergalactic as Bond teams with CIA agent Holly Goodhead ( Lois Chiles) after an American space shuttle is hijacked and evil industrialist Hugo Drax ( Michael Lonsdale) plots to dispose of mankind and jump- start his own master race. No one looked as good in a spacesuit as Moore, and Bond teams with old foe Jaws ( Richard Kiel) just in time to send Drax to his cosmic doom.
4THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN ( 1974)
This has a little bit of everything that’s great about Bond flicks: a superweapon powered by the heat of the sun; a notorious supervillain in Francisco Scaramanga ( Christopher Lee), the world’s most expensive assassin; and a superattractive Bond girl in Britt Ekland’s bikini- clad Mary Goodnight. Moore and Lee go head to head in a final duel set in a mirror- filled maze climax, with Hervé Villechaize behind the scenes as Scaramanga’s chief assistant.
5LIVE AND LET DIE ( 1973)
Moore’s first 007 outing also was one that was very much influenced by the blaxploitation genre popular at the time: Bond is on the case when three fellow agents are killed and the Caribbean drug lord Kananga ( Yaphet Kotto) needs to be taken down before he enacts his plan to rule the world’s heroin trade. The good news ( aside from Paul McCartney’s Wings- era theme song): Moore got a pair of high- profile Bond girls in Gloria Hendry, the first AfricanAmerican love interest for the hero, and Jane Seymour, as ace tarot- card reader Solitaire.
6OCTOPUSSY
( 1983) In the grip of the Cold War, Bond took on Afghan prince Kamal Khan ( Louis Jourdan) and jewel smuggler Octopussy ( Maud Adams) as they hatched a plot to use a nuclear weapon and force Europe into a disarmament scenario, leaving it open for a Soviet invasion. Things get really crazy for Bond under the big top, as he takes on knife- throwing twins, disguises himself as a clown to escape West German police and has to disarm a bomb before it blows up a bunch of young circus lovers.
7A
VIEW TO A KILL ( 1985)
One that’s definitely for the MTV crowd ( cue the Duran Duran title tune), the film sent Moore’s 007 out in style by having him battle the super- powerful henchwoman May Day ( Grace Jones) and foil the machinations of microchip mogul Max Zorin ( Christopher Walken), who schemes to upend Silicon Valley. Bond skis down a mountain in the opening, taking out bad guys before a romantic rendezvous in an underground igloo, but ends the movie in the air, tussling with Zorin at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.