James Bond Films in Order: 25 Eon Films, 1962 to 2021
The James Bond films in order run to 25 Eon productions across 59 years, from Dr. No in 1962 to No Time to Die in 2021. My map draws them as a London Underground diagram, each film a station and each recurring character a line, so you can see who carries the series and who quietly drops out of it.
I researched and drew it myself in East Sussex, working through the Eon filmography and the casting records film by film. The interesting part turned out not to be the six men who have played Bond. It was working out who else kept turning up, and when they stopped.
The 25 Eon James Bond Films in Order, with Release Years
- Dr. No (1962)
- From Russia with Love (1963)
- Goldfinger (1964)
- Thunderball (1965)
- You Only Live Twice (1967)
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
- Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
- Live and Let Die (1973)
- The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
- The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
- Moonraker (1979)
- For Your Eyes Only (1981)
- Octopussy (1983)
- A View to a Kill (1985)
- The Living Daylights (1987)
- Licence to Kill (1989)
- GoldenEye (1995)
- Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
- The World Is Not Enough (1999)
- Die Another Day (2002)
- Casino Royale (2006)
- Quantum of Solace (2008)
- Skyfall (2012)
- Spectre (2015)
- No Time to Die (2021)
Two Bond films are deliberately absent. Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983) are not Eon productions, so they sit in my research sheet rather than on the wall, and the map stops at 2021.
The Longest Line on the Map Does Not Belong to James Bond
Desmond Llewelyn played Q in seventeen Eon films, from From Russia with Love in 1963 to The World Is Not Enough in 1999. That is thirty-six years of the franchise, opposite five different Bonds: Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan.
No actor who played 007 comes near it. Roger Moore managed seven films and Sean Connery six across two spells, so on the finished map Q is the spine of the whole thing and Bond is the line that keeps changing hands.
There is one break in it. Llewelyn is absent from Live and Let Die in 1973, the only film in his run without him, so his line stops for a single station and starts again at the next one.
Peter Burton is the counterweight to all that. He played the quartermaster in Dr. No, was unavailable when the second film came round, and never returned. One station, and the part he let go ran on for another thirty-six years.
The One Film with No M at All
Bernard Lee played M in eleven Eon films, from Dr. No in 1962 through to Moonraker in 1979. He had already started work on For Your Eyes Only when he died in January 1981.
Eon chose not to recast him for that film. The script was rewritten so that M was on leave, and his scenes went to Chief of Staff Bill Tanner instead. For Your Eyes Only is the only Eon Bond film in which the character M does not appear at all.
On the map there is one clean gap in a line that otherwise runs from 1962 to 2021. It is the sort of thing a serious fan spots from across a room and then walks over to check, which is exactly the job I want a print like this to do.
Blofeld Loses His Name for Forty-Four Years, and the Reason Is Legal
Blofeld is named on screen through to Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, and is not named again until Spectre in 2015. Forty-four years, and it has nothing to do with the writing.
Kevin McClory held partial rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE after a 1963 settlement with Ian Fleming, which left Eon unable to use the name freely for decades.
You can watch them work around it in 1981. The bald man with the white cat in the opening of For Your Eyes Only is never named on screen, and the credits list him as "Bald-headed man with white cat". He sits on my sheet as a cameo rather than a named Blofeld, which is how he is drawn. MGM and Eon secured the full rights in 2013, and Blofeld had his name back two films later.
Five Times the Same Face Turns Up Twice
Mapping sixty years of casting throws up a set of returns that are easy to miss when you watch the films years apart. These are the ones I had to draw carefully, because the map has to show whether a line is resuming or a new one is starting.
| Who | First time | Second time | Why it matters on the map |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Hedison | Felix Leiter, Live and Let Die (1973) | Felix Leiter, Licence to Kill (1989) | Same man, same character, sixteen years apart. The first actor to return as Leiter. |
| Joe Don Baker | Brad Whitaker, villain, The Living Daylights (1987) | Jack Wade, CIA ally, GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) | Same actor on opposite sides of the story, so two separate lines rather than one. |
| Maud Adams | Andrea Anders, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) | Octopussy, title role, Octopussy (1983) | Two different characters, nine years apart, one of them the film's namesake. |
| Sean Connery | Dr. No (1962) to You Only Live Twice (1967) | Diamonds Are Forever (1971) | Bond's own line breaks for George Lazenby's single film, then picks Connery back up. |
| Martin Campbell | GoldenEye (1995) | Casino Royale (2006) | The only director hired twice to launch a brand new Bond, eleven years apart. |
What Earns a Line, and What Does Not
Not everyone who appears more than once gets a line of their own. My rule here is that a character earns one by recurring across films in the same role within the ongoing story, which is why Q, M, Moneypenny, Felix Leiter, Blofeld and Bill Tanner run as lines while a one-film villain is named at their station instead.
Gareth Mallory is the case that made me think the hardest. He arrives in Skyfall as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee rather than as M, and only takes the job at the very end, so he runs as his own line instead of being folded into Judi Dench's. Skyfall is the only film where two M-line characters run alongside each other.
The Aston Martin gets the same treatment as a character, because over sixty years it behaves like one. The DB5 belongs to the sixties, then disappears completely through the Moore and Dalton years while Bond drives a Lotus Esprit and an Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante instead, before turning up again in GoldenEye in 1995 and staying for most of what follows.
Which Size Holds Twenty-Five Stations
A2 at 420 x 594mm (23 x 16 in) suits a hallway, a study or the wall above a desk, and it reads properly from a couple of paces back. It starts at £42.
A1 at 594 x 841mm (33 x 23 in) is the one to pick for somebody who will stand close and work through every name. US inch sizes, 24x18 and 36x24, are available as well.
Each print is a Giclée on 230gsm textured matte fine art paper, archival and acid-free, supplied unframed or ready to hang in a black wood frame.
Questions People Ask About the Bond Map
How many James Bond films are there in order?
Twenty-five Eon productions, from Dr. No in 1962 to No Time to Die in 2021. Two further Bond films exist outside that run and are not on the map.
Which character has the longest line on the map?
Not Bond. Desmond Llewelyn's Q runs through seventeen films between 1963 and 1999, longer than any actor who has played 007.
Why does one film have no M?
Bernard Lee died in January 1981, during production of For Your Eyes Only. Eon did not recast the part for that film, so it is the only entry in the series without an M.
How many actors have played Bond?
Six across the twenty-five Eon films: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, each drawn on the films they appear in.
What is not on the James Bond map?
Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983) are left off because neither is an Eon production, and including them would break the continuity everything else depends on. Anything released after No Time to Die in 2021 postdates the artwork.
Related Plot Line Maps
If the same person likes films built to be followed rather than just watched, the Blade Runner plot explained map and the Back to the Future plot explained map are the natural companions, along with the Jaws plot explained map. For the sequence on its own, without the print detail, see every James Bond movie in order.
The full range sits in the film plot map collection, and the discography maps work the same way with records in the music art print collection.
Getting Hold of the Print
The James Bond movie character lines art print comes in A2 and A1, plus 24x18 and 36x24 inches, unframed or in a black wood frame, from £42. If it is a present and you would rather they chose the map themselves, there is a gift card.
