The James Bond actors ranked: six different answers to the role

On Her Majesty's Secret Service makes an unusually strong case for separating the achievement of a film from the command of its central actor.

Lazenby is physically convincing. His size and movement make Bond's presence in a struggle feel substantial, without relying on a joke to re-establish control afterward.

The social performance is less settled. Some exchanges feel like an actor completing the expected Bond manner rather than deciding how this particular man will respond. His impersonation of Sir Hilary Bray also uses George Baker's voice, which matters when judging the apparent verbal fluency.

Tracy changes the terms. Diana Rigg gives the relationship intelligence and resistance. Lazenby's relative openness works with her because he does not always appear certain that the usual pose will produce the right response.

The final scene is his strongest claim. The immediate incomprehension is more affecting than an elaborate demonstration of grief would have been. An ordinary future has been interrupted, and Bond has not yet found a way to understand the event through the familiar rules of danger and survival.

I put him sixth because the performance's physical strength and emotional openness do not produce equally sustained authority in the quieter scenes. One film is a limited sample, but the judgement need not become a penalty for the career he did not have.

His Bond still makes another life imaginable. That is essential to the film's power, even when Rigg and the direction are carrying more of a particular exchange.

Moore knows how to share the joke without leaving the film. His Bond can recognise the ridiculous situation and remain confident enough to continue inside it.

The timing matters more than the eyebrow itself. A small reaction changes how the audience receives an extravagant event. We are invited to enjoy the fantasy with someone who appears alert to its absurdity.

The Spy Who Loved Me gives that manner a useful obstacle. Anya has a personal reason to object to Bond that amusement cannot answer. Moore allows the fact that he killed her lover to remain consequential without making the whole film abandon its adventurous tone.

The Locque confrontation in For Your Eyes Only exposes the colder possibility. Moore sends the car over the cliff with a kick after returning the pin that links Locque to an earlier murder. His composure makes the revenge feel settled. Because this Bond usually knows how to make the room pleasant again, the refusal to soften the moment has particular force.

The late action is less convincing where the film struggles to connect the familiar persona to a demanding physical task. A performance can sustain the humour while the sequence around it loses credibility.

Fifth place should be read with the explicit tie: Moore and Brosnan both score 8.15. My preference for Brosnan concerns their best dramatic transitions, not a numerical advantage. Give comic ease more importance and Moore moves upward.

The lightness is a substantial interpretation of Bond. It lets a man remain entertaining while avoiding a public display of vulnerability. His strongest scenes make that protection visible without requiring him to become a version of Connery or Craig.

Brosnan makes the package convincing: formal clothes, absurd technology and a violent interruption can all belong to the same person. His best films then give somebody a way to disturb that apparent completeness.

In GoldenEye, Trevelyan possesses a history with Bond. He can address a man who existed before the present mission, which makes the confrontation more personal than another contest over a large weapon.

Natalya supplies another challenge. Her objection to the cost of his profession registers without requiring Brosnan to turn the scene into a confession. The polished answer does not quite make the question go away.

The World Is Not Enough gives him a sharper problem. Elektra has encouraged a judgement and used it. Elektra insists he cannot kill her because he would miss her. Brosnan shoots before she can complete another call for help, then answers the claim. The pause belongs to the aftermath, rather than a hesitation that would let her retain control.

The surrounding films do not always sustain that pressure. Die Another Day often seems to assume the persona can accommodate any new embellishment. Brosnan remains fluent while the human stakes become harder to locate.

He and Moore finish on the same weighted score. I break the tie in Brosnan's favour because the changes from social performance to anger, danger or hurt are more convincing to me across his best material. Moore remains the more assured comic actor.

Fourth place is therefore a stated preference within a numerical tie. Brosnan's strongest Bond is a man accustomed to making difficult things look easy, meeting someone who knows what that ease conceals.

Dalton's Bond looks as though he understands that a licence to kill does not make killing a pleasant part of the job.

The Living Daylights establishes the distinction through observation. Recognising that an apparent threat does not behave as expected is part of his competence. He is willing to let a person's behaviour complicate the assignment.

That attention gives Kara more than the function of a reward. Bond has to interpret her situation, and what he notices does not always support the most convenient official explanation.

Licence to Kill makes loyalty the source of a different conflict. He brings professional capacities to a private purpose. Dalton keeps the anger contained enough to make calculation and revenge difficult to separate.

The infiltration of Sanchez's organisation is the best demonstration. Bond encourages a system of suspicion to turn on itself. He is dangerous because another man's destructive need to control loyalty gives him something to use.

The lighter dialogue is less assured. A quip can sound like a requirement imposed on a character trying to maintain concentration. That is a limitation, even though the familiar claim that Dalton has no humour goes too far.

Two films offer a smaller range of evidence than the long runs. They nevertheless establish a coherent Bond whose humanity has practical consequences. Third place rests on that connection among observation, reluctance and force. He is most persuasive when caring about somebody changes what he is prepared to do.

Craig makes pursuit look effortful. In Casino Royale, he cannot simply copy the other man's grace, so he uses persistence, force and the routes he can find. Competence is something being exercised under pressure, not a promise that nothing can touch him.

What happens afterward is equally important. The body retains the impact. His Bond may recover enough to continue, but the film does not immediately make the violence disappear from him.

Vesper gives that competence a more intimate limit. He can observe accurately and still misunderstand what another person needs. In the shower, his useful response is to stay. The action hero's usual ability to solve a problem has little to contribute.

The continuing story lets injury and attachment accumulate. Craig uses that opportunity well, though continuity is not itself proof of better acting. The more revealing question is what changes in a glance, a hesitation or the delivery of a familiar joke.

His humour is underrated when it works through discomfort. The Paloma encounter in No Time to Die also shows how enjoyable he can be alongside someone whose competence he does not need to absorb.

The limitation is repetition of the wound. Some passages ask weariness to supply depth without giving the immediate scene a new conflict. The performance can remain committed while the adventure begins to feel overburdened.

He is a very close second. Connery's social ease and comic timing narrowly outweigh Craig's advantage in making the work physically and emotionally costly. A viewer who places that cost first has a strong case for reversing them.

Connery's Bond can enjoy a room without appearing to need its approval. The casino introduction in Dr. No joins looking, pausing and speaking into one controlled entrance. The charm seems available rather than something he is working to sell.

The Professor Dent encounter exposes the coldness inside that ease. Bond waits because the situation is already arranged to his advantage. The violence feels decided before the other man understands how little freedom he has.

The train fight in From Russia with Love supplies the necessary counterweight. In a cramped compartment, polish cannot maintain a comfortable distance from another body. Bond has to struggle. Connery makes the transition from leisure to force convincing without seeming to become a different character.

That balance puts him first for me. Craig gives injury and attachment a longer dramatic history; Connery can make the possibility of cruelty present inside a smile before either requires explanation.

The cruelty is also where some of the films have aged most badly. The barn scene in Goldfinger presents sexual coercion through the hero's supposed ability to overcome resistance. It belongs in an assessment of how his appeal works, rather than being dismissed as an unrelated embarrassment.

The later appearances are uneven. Sometimes the familiar manner does more work than a fresh response to the scene. First place recognises the best and most distinctive Bond he creates, not an obligation to praise every film.

The context average uses his six Eon features. Never Say Never Again is a separate return and is not included in that average.