Bond, Best to Worst:

James Bond is an enormous franchise of 25 movies.  Some, however, are much more watchable than others.  Since the stories are only loosely connected in any sort of timeline, it's possible to only watch the best Bond movies and ignore the rest.  Up until this past month, I hadn't seen much of the Bond-verse, but now that stands corrected.  Having watched the whole series, I can accurately judge the Bond franchise from best to worst.  Once the Bond movies stop being pleasant as you go down the list, that's the sign of when to quit watching for your own mental health.  I found something enjoyable about every single Bond movie, but if not for my Pokemon like quest for completion, I doubt I would have finished watching every single Bond movie on its own innate quality.

1.  The Living Daylights
2.  The Spy Who Loved Me
3.  Thunderball
4.  Diamonds are Forever
5.  On Her Majesty's Secret Service
6.  Goldfinger
7.  The Man with the Golden Gun
8.  Octopussy
9.  You Only Live Twice
10.  For Your Eyes Only
11.  From Russia with Love
12.  A View to a Kill
13.  Dr. No
14.  Tomorrow Never Dies
15.  The World is Not Enough
16.  Moonraker
17.  Casino Royale
18.  Goldeneye
19.  Live and Let Die
20.  License to Kill
21.  Die Another Day

22.  No Time to Die  
23.  Quantum of Solace
24.  Skyfall
25.  Spectre

As we can see, Modern Bond (post-Timothy Dalton) just plain isn't as good as classic Bond (pre-Timothy Dalton).  Even so, there were some real stinkers in the old Bond movies that more modern Bond movies, even filler Bond movies not based on Ian Fleming's writing, were able to surpass.

The Living Daylights had beautiful artistry, realistic stunts and even a realistic plot (the one time Bond was taken prisoner it even made sense he was spared, a miracle!).  It always feels more grounded when Bond's opponent is the Soviet Union, like the events depicted could have actually occurred.  The Spy Who Loved Me is the quintessential Bond, having all the best elements of all the other films beautifully distilled and amalgamated into one.

Alternatively, Moonraker's hokey pretending to be in zero gravity, a privately funded space colony and space shuttle fleet well beyond anything the US GDP managed to produce, and the sudden sprouting of laser guns that technological levels even today are still nowhere near good enough to emulate, simply stretches the limits of believability.  Live and Let Die is simply gross in its depiction of blacks, and License to Kill is completely unimaginative and uninteresting given that Bond has descended to fighting lowly drug dealers.  Is that really a job for MI6?

If I had to draw a line, I would stop watching Bond at 15.  The World is Not Enough is the lowest allowable limit before watching Bond just becomes a chore instead of a pleasure.  Daniel Craig's Bond is terrible.  There's no gadgets, no romances, no infiltration of enemy bases via ingratiating yourself to the enemy and spying on him/her to get the information necessary to send in the marines to take down the evil organization, nothing remotely Bond-like at all about these movies.  If Daniel Craig weren't telling me he was Bond, I never would have known.  Casino Royale is okay because it is based on a Fleming novel, so it was difficult for the makers to mess it up too badly.  The rest are just garbage.