Rank the James Bond main title sequences

Films
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Continuing with a new James Bond list, this week we’ll be giving our rankings of the main titles sequences of the series. As usual, Never Say Never Again is eligible to be included with the EON series.

So how do you rank the main titles sequences?

Here’s my list:

  1. CASINO ROYALE – (Daniel Kleinman)

  2. GOLDENEYE – (Daniel Kleinman)

  3. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME – (Maurice Binder)

  4. SKYFALL – (Daniel Kleinman)

  5. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH – (Daniel Kleinman)

  6. MOONRAKER – (Maurice Binder)

  7. THUNDERBALL – (Maurice Binder)

  8. LIVE AND LET DIE – (Maurice Binder)

  9. TOMORROW NEVER DIES – (Daniel Kleinman)

  10. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE – (Robert Brownjohn)

  11. DIE ANOTHER DAY – (Daniel Kleinman)

  12. NO TIME TO DIE – (Daniel Kleinman)

  13. SPECTRE – (Daniel Kleinman)

  14. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – (Maurice Binder)

  15. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE – (Maurice Binder)

  16. A VIEW TO A KILL – (Maurice Binder)

  17. OCTOPUSSY – (Maurice Binder)

  18. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER – (Maurice Binder)

  19. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE – (Maurice Binder)

  20. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN – (Maurice Binder)

  21. GOLDFINGER – (Robert Brownjohn)

  22. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS – (Maurice Binder)

  23. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN – (R/Greenberg Associates, Inc.)

  24. QUANTUM OF SOLACE – (MK12)

  25. LICENCE TO KILL – (Maurice Binder)

  26. DR. NO – (Maurice Binder)

Daniel Kleinman’s efforts are excellent, especially those top four of his I mentioned, and he should continue in the series. Maurice Binder did some great work too (most particularly with the gun barrel invention), but he was pretty much on fumes after AVTAK. But I have to admit, when I rewatched all these, that TLD & LTK, while certainly not as good as his previous efforts, nevertheless weren’t quite as bad as I remembered either. Robert Brownjohn only did two films, but he should get a lot of credit for helping create the look of the Bond main titles sequence or even arguably unleashing the creativity in Binder to make them into what we all know and love. MK12 did an okay job, but it largely pales in comparison to the rest of the series. And R/Greenberg Associates didn’t do much in their one film other than lay the titles over the images, but under the production circumstances, I’m sure they didn’t have many options available to them. At least those images assist their effort.

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I’ll only give my favourite five as these things tend to be even more difficult for me to rate.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE - love the volcanoes-lava-Asia vibe; this would actually fit just as well to a faithful adaptation of the novel.

ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE - Bond’s silhouette hanging from a clock face, running out of time, previous adventures trickling through the hour glass: it’s actually a title design that might have gone with any Bond film but is so distinctive for its heraldry bookending.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - Binder in excellent form, picking up the Russian spy theme with the female shapes and making use of Moore’s image to tell a little story during the titles.

GOLDENEYE - a fresh start marrying tradition with more emphasis on thematic imagery. In time the pendulum would swing back, female shapes would again dominate and wear themes as conductor circuits, crude oil or fire. But here the crumbling of the Soviet empire and Janus nature of what rose from its ruins is acted out in striking images.

CASINO ROYALE - a brilliant adaptation of the casino-poker-killer theme, visually dazzling and for the first time in the series getting away without female silhouettes (but showing Eva Green’s face beside Craig’s). Few main titles work so well without their respective songs as this.

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I guess the quality of every Bond title sequence is closely tied to the song it illustrates.

And naturally, the more sequences an artist like Binder designed the less inspired and the more repetitive they could be.

When Kleinman took over technical possibilities allowed for faster production and hence visually more impressive sequences. It therefore is a bit unfair to compare these.

So allow me to do the ranking within eras:

The first 27 years
GF
LALD
TB
FRWL
OHMSS
DAF
YOLT
TSWLM
MR
FYEO
OP
AVTAK
TLD
LTK
DN

The Brosnan and the Craig era
GE
SP
TWINE
SF
DAD
NTTD
CR
TND
QOS

I don’t rank NSNA because I don’t really consider it in this league.

My personal top ten

  1. GF
  2. LALD
  3. GE
  4. SP
  5. TB
  6. TWINE
  7. FRWL
  8. SF
  9. OHMSS
  10. DAD
4 Likes