How to Watch All 24 James Bond Movies For Maximum Variety

If your family is anything like mine, you spend your holiday season watching every movie in the James Bond DVD box set that someone in your family got for Christmas in 2003. You know, the collection that was kept up to date as all the the Daniel Craig films came out over the years. It's not an obsession, it's just good record keeping.

Why are these films revisited year after year around Christmas time? In my opinion, it's likely because they're a safe choice: simple action films with easily digestible plots, PG-13 ratings at their most violent, and embedded deep within western pop culture. The long history of the series also appeals to several generations who are likely to spend many days under one roof during the month of December. Die Hard may be the best Christmas movie, but you wouldn't show it to young children, and it only prevents political discussion for 132 minutes. Watching all the James Bond movies, however, could occupy two waking days.

Watching all 24 Bond films (Eon Productions canon only in this list, no Never Say Never Again, or the 1967 Casino Royale) is a daunting task, and it helps to have a plan going in. The most obvious order in which to watch the movies is chronologically, beginning with Dr. No and ending with Spectre. However, one could find that seven movies in a row featuring Roger Moore as James Bond gets a little stale. Furthermore, if the audience is frequently changing due to family members continuously leaving and rejoining the couch, having a show order with more variety helps everyone feel like they got a good taste of the entire slate, even if they only caught a few movies here and there.

The list below allows some user customization as the watch order is sorted by the actor playing Bond. Although this may not showcase maximum variety in terms of screenwriters or directors, one could certainly take those elements into consideration as a secondary means of sorting. Because, for the most part, a James Bond actor appears in several consecutive films, the vibe of each actor's set of films is largely similar. There are notable exceptions of course (e.g. Goldeneye) but the lead actor and thereby the year of production remains a good metric of the tone of a James Bond film.

Finally, because the number of films in which each actor appears varies, the list will naturally include portions that more frequently feature certain actors. This is mitigated by establishing a pattern as close as possible to a Fibonacci sequence and then reversing the sequence halfway down the list.

So here it is, the order in which one should watch all 24 Bond films based on lead actor for maximum variety this holiday season.

1. Moore
2. Connery
3. Moore
4. Connery
5. Brosnan
6. Craig
7. Moore
8. Connery
9. Brosnan
10. Craig
11. Dalton
12. Lazenby
13. Moore
14. Dalton
15. Craig
16. Brosnan
17. Connery
18. Moore
19. Craig
20. Brosnan
21. Connery
22. Moore
23. Connery
24. Moore