The Correct Order To Watch Daniel Craig's James Bond Movies
Daniel Craig's run as James Bond rewrote the rules of the entire franchise.
Seriously. There's a clear delineation line between 2006's "Casino Royale" and every single other film about Agent 007. A before and an after. A then and a now. Fans argued about it then and they're arguing about it now. They'll continue arguing about it until the heat death of the universe, and it's hard to imagine the next Bond iteration ever quite going back to how things used to be. Craig's humane, broken take on the character was a cinematic earthquake. The landscape shifted beneath his weary feet. And his movies reacted accordingly, evolving with his performance ... and taking some big swings.
If you clicked on this article, it's possibly because you're new to James Bond and want to know where to start. Or you're a seasoned pro looking for something to get mad about. Or you're somewhere in-between and want some guidance on how to introduce someone to Bond through the Daniel Craig era and don't know quite where to start. Good thing the James Bond experts at /Film wrote this handy article, huh?
New Bond, who dis?
To fully appreciate how much the Daniel Craig era rocked the Bond franchise to its core, one must watch (or at least skim some YouTube clips from) 2002's "Die Another Day," considered by many fans to be the nadir of the series. A live-action cartoon that plays more like the parodies that Bond inspired rather than a Bond movie itself, the film was a hit but also a dead end. It couldn't go on like this.
The only option: a reboot. A clean slate. A new Bond actor, and a new tone, one that borrowed from other recent hits like "The Bourne Identity" and "Batman Begins." The result is a series of films that is often remarkable, sometimes frustrating, and entirely worth of study. Character-driven. Down-to-earth. Hard-hitting. Often deeply tragic. The Daniel Craig Bond Era:
- "Casino Royale" (2006)
- "Quantum of Solace" (2008)
- "Skyfall" (2012)
- "Spectre" (2015)
- "No Time to Die" (2021)
And beyond the tonal shift, and the more human Bond, there's one thing that truly separates this era from the runs captained by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan.
The only correct way to watch the Craig era
You've got to watch them in order. Seriously. Especially if it's your first time through 'em, the Daniel Craig movies are designed to be viewed in order of release. Any other method is foolhardy. The simple beauty of the pre-Craig franchise was that you could pop on any film in the series, enjoy it in a vacuum, and move on. Each film was 100% standalone, and that was part of the appeal. But the complex beauty of the Craig era is that each film bleeds into the next, with the scars lingering from past adventures, broken relationships struggling to heal from one chapter to the next, and a proper finale that pays off James Bond's taxing journey. Even when the films are inconsistent, each one feels essential. This was never the case with past Bond movies (for better and worse).
For better because the best of the Craig films are truly magnificent — "Casino Royale" and "Skyfall" rank among the best Bond movies ever made. Others are at least interesting misfires, with "Spectre" and "No Time to Die” taking giant, ambitious swings that sometimes pay off (and sometimes make you roll your eyes). And "Quantum of Solace" is... Well, it's certainly a movie!
The Daniel Craig era will be forever defined by its leading man, with those piercing blue eyes and his battered, weary, soulful performance. But it's just as defined by the interlocking films, the serialization, the sense that you can't skip one movie without actually missing something important. That's brand new to Bond and it makes the Craig era the only one you can't watch in the order of your choosing.