Though they’re surely more acute for some people than others, basically everyone has trust issues. One of the key factors that makes James Bond the most compelling—not to mention the most enduringly popular—movie character of all time, is that he can’t really trust anyone, ever. A great spy movie takes the binding human characteristic of trust issues that we all empathize with to extreme lengths. Apart from a few sacred professional relationships, like Felix Leiter of the CIA and a few key people at MI6, James Bond is always at risk of a double cross. He knows this, and he carries himself accordingly.
Bond’s trust issues are perhaps most apparent and aggressive in his entanglements with women. The most notorious womanizer in fiction, Bond’s propensity to be that comes equally from the fact that he’s red-blooded and likes women, and, of course, that his missions often drive women into his arms. Bond has slept with over 50 women across 25 official Eon films, and the historic Bond Girls of the franchise are their own legacy, but most of these relationships fail to leave a permanent mark. The following list is not about those movies, and it’s not about those relationships. The following ranks the select few uncommonly romantic James Bond films where the world’s most famous spy lets up his guard a bit, and genuinely falls in love.
4
‘Spectre’ (2015)
Daniel Craig & Léa Seydoux in character on the Spectre poster
Spectreis such a frustrating film, even more so with repeated viewings. Even the worst Eon Bond film (and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest this is the very worst of them) has a lot going for it, from sensational production values to the biggest explosion in film history, but Spectre tries to do way to much even for its bloated 160-minute runtime, and almost none of it is truly convincing. The 007 franchise has chased trends successfully over its decades of existence and prominence, but Spectre is where you can really feel the producers trying to emulate the MCU, which, to be fair, was extraordinarily popular at the time. This penultimate film of the interconnected Daniel Craig era wants to set up too many characters and plot threads without making sure any of them are really gripping; the film’s worst sin is the series’ worst main villain, in Christoph Waltz‘s non-starter reboot of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
The heavy-handed romance doesn’t fare much better. There was potential here, with the great Léa Seydoux cast as Dr. Madeleine Swann, the daughter of an aging Bond adversary. The machinery here is really clunky; the movie is far too eager to try to capture the spark and thematic weight of Casino Royale. It obviously wants us to know this is Bond’s next great love without really convincing us. Near the climax of the film, Swann says, “I love you,” and it’s easy to think, did we miss a few lines? Did we miss a few scenes? The romance between Bond and Swann would be more convincingly developed in the subsequent No Time to Die, an overall better film ruined by a disastrous ending.
3
‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977)
Image via United Artists
“A British agent in love with a Russian agent. Détente, indeed.” These are among the final words of Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens), big bad of The Spy Who Loved Me. This picture was a significant Hail Mary for the franchise. Following the poor performance of The Man With the Golden Gun, this really needed to work. The Spy Who Loved Me was a runaway hit, and it’s a glorious entertainment to this day, with outlandish set pieces, a career-defining performance by Roger Moore, and indeed a central love story that’s more than serviceable. Barbara Bach is breathtakingly beautiful and appealingly steely as Russian Agent Anya Amasova, the first Bond Girl billed as 007’s equal. The central conflict of their love story is ingenious, too: Bond killed Anya’s former lover in action, and it’s only a matter of time before she finds out.
No one is going to compare comic sci-fi action thriller The Spy Who Loved Me to Doctor Zhivago anytime soon, but the romance here, though relatively more lighthearted, works far better than the romantic subplot of Spectre. The two agents compete for much of the film in a way that plays out like a screwball rom-com with gadgets, and then there’s the key scene where Anya discovers that Bond killed her boyfriend. The scene is played completely straight, an extraordinarily well calculated piece of acting on Moore’s part. Everything about The Spy Who Loved Me works. This film is a classic, an energetic and massively scaled adventure film with just the right amount of character work at the core.
2
‘Casino Royale’ (2006)
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
The following two Bond films are the genuinely great romantic entries in the series, and they’re frankly about neck-and-neck. The follow-up to the financially successful but overall reviled sci-fi dud Die Another Day did a complete 180, delivering the most grounded and emotionally stripped-down Bond film since arguably From Russia With Love. A lot of Casino Royale‘s greatness obviously comes from the fact that it’s based on Fleming’s punchy original Bond novel, which was long held from Eon due to legal issues. This was Daniel Craig’s debut as Bond, with then mostly-unknown Eva Green co-starring as Vesper Lynd, a British treasury officer who’s blackmailed into being a double agent.
Casino Royale is one of scarce few films in history that’s flawless as an action film and as a love story. Vesper really does love Bond, and her complicated betrayal is what makes him the man that audiences had known for decades. Having the origin story this far recontextualizes him. The entire movie is a rather lushly romantic affair, with an underrated music score by David Arnold doing a lot of the leg work. Tracks like “Vesper” and “City of Lovers” feel very much in line with Bond scores of the past while treading deeper emotionally, a natural complement to Fleming’s story. Though it’s modernized and smartly fleshed out, Casino Royale is unforgettable because it comes from such a strong piece of fiction.
1
‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969)
Image via United Artists
The sixth entry in the James Bond franchise, unquestionably the series’ black sheep and the only one to star Australian model George Lazenby, has the great fortune of being based on what many consider to be Ian Fleming’s best book. The plot is expansive, but the emotions are intimate; everything is really, really personal here. Bond goes under deep cover to spy on his nemesis (Telly Savalas‘ take on Blofeld is the series’ best, a physical and intellectual threat), and all the while, 007 is falling in love. Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) is the disturbed, suicidal daughter of a crime boss with whom Bond has a below-the-line acquaintanceship and understanding.
Thanks to the Swiss mountaintop setting that dominates most of the runtime, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service features some stunning action sequences, most notably two of the best skiing sequences ever filmed. That excitement complements higher emotional stakes than usual. Though it begins as a setup of pure convenience for the sake of Bond’s obsession with his job, the romance becomes very real. Bond gives Tracy a reason to live, and she ultimately gives him a reason to leave the service. They’re married in the final reel, before Tracy is tragically struck with a bullet intended for Bond in the ending that’s lifted verbatim from Fleming. Lazenby deserves more praise for his performance here; he’s occasionally stiff and hardly perfect, but he’s terrific in the romantic scenes with Rigg. The tragic ending, in particular, is flawlessly executed, both by Lazenby and Peter Hunt, the director. Hunt was a longtime technical asset to this franchise, and this was the only entry he helmed. It’s a shame that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service received a middling reception at the time of release; this is likely what prevented Hunt from returning to the franchise he left such an imprint upon.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
