Bond films

Series of films featuring novelist Ian Fleming's creation, the urbane British spy and womanizer James Bond (also known as 007). Blending comedy and drama, gunplay and sex scenes, and deploying every conceivable mode of transport, the series has exerted an enduring appeal for mainstream cinemagoers since Dr No, the first instalment, premiered in 1962. The series has produced such classics of the British cinema as Goldfinger (1964) and On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), and has added a memorable array of evil masterminds to the pantheon of screen villains. Five actors have played the charismatic leading man: Sean Connery, George Lazenby (1939- ), Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton (1946- ), and Pierce Brosnan.

The series was produced until the late-1980s by Albert R ‘Cubby’ Broccoli (1909-1996) and, in 1962-74, by his business partner Harry Saltzman (1915-1994). Casino Royale (1967), based on Fleming's novel of the same title and starring David Niven as the intrepid adventurer, is the only Bond feature film to be made outside the series.

The series was much influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller North by Northwest (1959). Other Bond films include From Russia with Love (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy who Loved Me (1977), Octopussy (1983), Licence to Kill (1989), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and Die Another Day (2002).