Action has always been a major component of the James Bond franchise and the producers have really been able to step up that action in the past couple of decades with advances in filmmaking technology. Now, pretty much anything can be achieved on film.
Pierce Brosnan’s movies were criticized for overusing CGI effects in their action scenes when the technology was still in its primitive stages, but the 007 producers found the right balance between the practical and the computer-generated by the time the Daniel Craig era rolled around. Both Brosnan and Craig’s Bond movies have some spectacular action sequences.
10 Brosnan: The Contra Dam Jump In GoldenEye
In the opening scene of GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan’s Bond is introduced on top of the Contra Dam, ready to infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility with his partner, 006.
The 220m bungee jump was performed by stuntman Wayne Michaels, setting the record for the highest bungee jump off a fixed structure. Suffice to say, it sets the stage for the movie nicely.
9 Craig: Sinking Building In Casino Royale
Having to move through an entire building and punch through bad guys to get the girl is enough of a challenge on its own, but in the action-packed finale of Casino Royale, Bond is tasked with doing all that while the building is sinking.
In a surprisingly dark turn, Bond’s love interest doesn’t survive the melee. She locks herself in an elevator to indicate that he should save himself, but he still tries to rescue her. It’s futile, as she drowns before he can get in.
8 Brosnan: Backseat Driver In Tomorrow Never Dies
In Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan’s second outing in the role of James Bond, Q gives 007 an Aston Martin that he can control remotely with an app on his phone.
When he’s trapped in a parking lot by some bad guys, he ends up having to remotely control the car from the backseat as he tries to escape. It’s a delightfully over-the-top sequence, with Bond tumbling around the back of his car in the midst of a self-contained chase scene.
7 Craig: The Shanghai Fight Scene In Skyfall
Bond fights a sniper aiming into a window across the street on a high level of a Shanghai skyscraper in one of Skyfall’s most riveting action scenes.
The fight is beautifully silhouetted against the bright, neon-lit billboards by cinematographer Roger Deakins. Deakins is one of the greatest cinematographers working today; his visual contributions significantly elevated the action of Skyfall.
6 Brosnan: The Boat Chase In The World Is Not Enough
In the opening action set piece of Brosnan’s third outing as Bond, The World is Not Enough, 007 chases an assassin down the River Thames in an experimental speedboat designed by Q’s team.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie fails to live up to this level of excitement, with several poorly executed action scenes, a plot that’s too ridiculous to be fun, and a terribly miscast Denise Richards.
5 Craig: Day Of The Dead In Spectre
On the whole, Spectre is one of the weaker entries in the Bond franchise. If it wasn’t for the egregious mediocrity of Quantum of Solace, it would be Craig’s worst Bond outing. But it gets off to a pretty great start with an action sequence based around Mexico City’s Day of the Dead celebrations.
At the beginning of the sequence, a skyscraper falls on Bond. At the end of it, he engages in a fistfight on a crashing helicopter. This opener is wall-to-wall spectacle.
4 Brosnan: The Motorcycle Chase In Tomorrow Never Dies
Bond manages to leap from a tall building and escape from the bad guys on a motorcycle while handcuffed to Michelle Yeoh’s Colonel Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies.
What follows is a spectacular motorcycle chase on the streets of Saigon complete with daring stunts and vibrant visuals. At one point, 007 jumps the bike over a hovering helicopter’s spinning blades.
3 Craig: The Parkour Chase In Casino Royale
Parkour had been around for a couple of years before Casino Royale featured it in its opening chase scene, but the movie is what brought it into the mainstream. Bond’s target in the chase is appropriately played by Sébastien Foucan, one of the founders of parkour.
Daniel Craig’s 007 is shown to be a relatively young and inexperienced Bond throughout the chase, as he makes bad judgment calls and brashly uses brute force to solve his problems, setting the stage for the movie to act as a kind of origin story for the character.
2 Brosnan: The Tank Chase In GoldenEye
Any Bond movie with as memorable an opening action scene as GoldenEye’s Contra Dam jump needs to go even bigger throughout the rest of the movie. Before 007’s final showdown with Trevelyan atop the Arecibo Observatory, he hops in a tank and tears through the streets of St. Petersburg.
To pull off the breathtaking practical stunts in this chase, the producers went through three Russian tanks: two T-54s and a T-55.
1 Craig: The Opening Scene In Skyfall
With Skyfall, Sam Mendes set out to marry the gritty realism of Casino Royale with the unbridled fun of classic Bond movies, and for the most part, he pulled it off — especially in the opening action scene.
The sequence moves at a breakneck pace, balancing Bond’s signature suaveness (after leaping from his motorcycle onto a moving train, he casually adjusts his cufflinks) with nail-biting suspense, culminating in a fight on the roof of a moving train. With a sniper rifle aimed at the fight, Moneypenny is encouraged to take the shot by M. She pulls the trigger, hits Bond, and he plummets into the ocean. Cue Adele’s iconic theme.
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