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After months of delays, the 25 th official James Bond film is finally here in “No Time to Die,” an epic (163 minutes!) action film that presents 007 with one of his toughest missions: End the era that most people agree gave new life to one of the most iconic film characters of all time. Everyone knows that this is Daniel Craig ’s last film as Bond, and so “No Time to Die” needs to entertain on its own terms, provide a sense of finality for this chapter of the character, and even hint at the future of the spy with a license to kill. It would also help a bit to clean up some of the mess left by “ Spectre ,” a film widely considered a disappointment. All of the boxes that need to be checked seem to drag down “No Time to Die,” which comes to life in fits and starts, usually through some robust direction of quick action beats from director Cary Joji Fukunaga , but ultimately plays it too safe and too familiar from first frame to last. Even as it’s closing character arcs that started years ago, it feels like a film with too little at stake, a movie produced by a machine that was fed the previous 24 flicks and programmed to spit out a greatest hits package.

Long gone are the days when a new Bond movie felt like it restarted the character and his universe as a standalone action film. “No Time to Die” seems cut more from the Marvel Cinematic Universe model of pulling from previous entries to create the impression that everything that happens here was planned all along. You don’t really have to have seen the previous four films, but it will be almost impossible to appreciate this one if you haven’t (especially “Spectre,” to which this is a very direct sequel).

And so, of course, we start with Vesper, the love of Bond’s life from “Casino Royale.” After a very clever and taut opening flashback scene for Madeleine Swann ( Léa Seydoux ), the film catches up with James and Madeleine in Italy, where he’s finally been convinced to go see the grave of the woman who continues to haunt him. It explodes. Is this a hint that the creators of “No Time to Die” are going to blow up their foundation and give Bond new definition? Not really, although the extended chase/shoot-out sequence that follows is one of the film’s best. (It totally had me pre-credits.)

Bond blames Swann for what happened in Italy, convinced she betrayed him, and it leads to a repeat of the “ Skyfall ” arc with James off the grid five years after the prologue. The deadly theft of a weaponized virus that can target a specific person’s DNA brings Bond back to the fold, although he’s first aligned with the CIA via Felix Leiter (a wonderfully laid-back Jeffrey Wright ) and a new face named Logan Ash ( Billy Magnussen ). He’s been replaced at MI6 by a new 007 named Nomi ( Lashana Lynch ) and James doesn’t really trust M ( Ralph Fiennes ). He’s convinced M knows more about the new threat than he’s letting on (of course, he does), but at least Bond’s still got Q ( Ben Whishaw ) and Moneypenny ( Naomie Harris ) helping him behind the scenes.

It’s definitely a crowded crew of espionage experts from around the world, but these talented supporting performers are given surprisingly little to do other than push the plot forward to its inevitable ending. Lynch feels like a self-aware nod to controversy around the casting of Bond, which is cool enough, but then she’s not given much of a character to make her interesting on her own. Seydoux and Craig have shockingly little chemistry, which was a problem in the final act of “Spectre” that's deadlier here because of what’s missing from the final act, and a character is added into their dynamic in a way that feels cheap and manipulative. Ana de Armas pops up to give the film a completely different and welcome new energy in an action sequence set in Cuba, only to leave the movie ten minutes later. (I truly felt the MCU-ness here in that I expect her to reappear in Bond 26 or 27.)

As for villains, Christoph Waltz returns as the slow-talking Blofeld, but his big scene doesn’t have the tension it needs, ending with a shrug. And then there’s Rami Malek as the superbly named villain Lyutsifer Safin, another heavily-accented, scarred, monologuing Bond baddie who wants to watch the world burn. The polite thing to say is that Malek and the filmmakers purposefully lean into a legacy of Bond bad guys, but Safin is such a clear echo of other villains it’s as if the next Avengers movie had another big purple guy named Chanos. Craig's Bond deserved a better final foe, one who’s not really even introduced into the narrative here until halfway through.

What keeps “No Time to Die” watchable (outside of a typically committed turn from Craig) is the robust visual sense that Fukunaga often creates when he doesn’t have to focus on plot. The opening sequence is tightly framed and almost poetic—even just the first shot of a hooded figure coming over a snowy hill has a grace that Bond often lacks. The shoot-out in Cuba moves like a dance scene with Craig and de Armas finding each other’s rhythms. There’s a riveting encounter in a foggy forest and a single shot climb in a tower of enemies that recalls that one-shot bravura take from “True Detective.” In an era with fewer blockbusters, these quick visceral thrills may be enough.

When “Casino Royale” burst on the scene in 2006, it really changed the action landscape. The Bond mythology had grown stale—it was your father or even your grandfather’s franchise—and Daniel Craig gave it adrenaline. For something that once felt like it so deftly balanced the old of a timeless character with a new, richer style, perhaps the biggest knock against “No Time to Die” is that there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better in one of the other Craig movies. That’s fine if you’re such a fan of Bond that reheated leftovers still taste delicious—and even more so after waiting so long for this particular meal—but it’s not something anyone will remember in a few years as films like “Casino Royale” and “Skyfall” define the era. Maybe it all should have ended a couple movies ago. Then we all would have had time for something new.

Only in theaters on October 8th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

No Time to Die (2021)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive material.

163 minutes

Daniel Craig as James Bond

Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann

Lashana Lynch as Nomi

Ralph Fiennes as M / Gareth Mallory

Christoph Waltz as Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Ben Whishaw as Q

Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny

Rami Malek as Lyutsifer Safin

Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter

Ana de Armas as Paloma

Billy Magnussen as Logan Ash

Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner

David Dencik as Valdo Obruchev

Cary Joji Fukunaga

Writer (characters)

Ian Fleming

Writer (story)

Neal Purvis
Robert Wade
Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Cinematographer

Linus Sandgren
Elliot Graham
Hans Zimmer

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User reviews

No Time to Die

James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain arme... Read all James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.

Cary Joji Fukunaga
Neal Purvis
Robert Wade
Daniel Craig
Ana de Armas
4.1K User reviews
447 Critic reviews
68 Metascore
44 wins & 76 nominations total

Lyutsifer Safin

Felix Leiter

Valdo Obruchev

Primo (Cyclops)

Young Madeleine
Madeleine's Mother

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Trivia Reportedly, James Bond actor Daniel Craig personally hand-picked Cuban actress Ana de Armas to play Paloma in this Bond movie, after working with her on Knives Out (2019) , which first released about only four months before No Time to Die was originally meant to release.
Goofs Bond uses the mini-EMP device in his watch that was given to him by Q, and in each instance it disables proximate/touching electrical devices, but it doesn't affect the radio transceiver in Bond's ear through which he is communicating with his allies. However, Q did imply that the watch did have a limited range. Obviously it would be designed with a range that would not extend to an earpiece. It's possible that, since Q-Branch produces discrete EMP devices for agents, the boffins also have the smarts to produce EMP-hardened earpieces/'phones/tablets/etc. for complimentary issue to agents also being issued with a personal EMP device.

Blofeld : James, fate draws us back together. Now your enemy is my enemy. How did that happen?

James Bond : Well, you live long enough.

Crazy credits The first part of the closing credits is accompanied by "We Have All the Time in the World", the theme song from the 007 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) .
Connections Edited into No Time to Die: Q-Dar (2021)
Soundtracks No Time to Die Music by Finneas O'Connell Lyrics by Billie Eilish Performed by Billie Eilish Billie Eilish appears courtesy of Darkroom/Interscope Records

User reviews 4.1K

magadalwarmayur
Sep 28, 2021
How long is No Time to Die? Powered by Alexa
When was this movie set, compared to other Bond movies? Q and Moneypenny are played by young actors.
October 8, 2021 (United States)
United Kingdom
United States
007 - No Time To Die
007 Talenthouse
Không Phải Lúc Chết
Aviemore, Highland, Scotland, UK (car chase in Norway)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Universal Pictures
Eon Productions
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$250,000,000 (estimated)
$160,891,007
$55,225,007
Oct 10, 2021
$774,153,007

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 43 minutes
Dolby Surround 7.1
Dolby Digital
12-Track Digital Sound
Dolby Atmos
IMAX 6-Track

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No Time to Die Reviews

If you watch Bond movies to learn more about Bond than saving the world, then you may be pleased to know that it ties up a lot of loose ends for the character without sacrificing what we enjoy about the character.

Full Review | Jun 10, 2024

Whatever you think of Daniel Craig or his wrist-slashing attitude to 007, it can’t be denied that he has forever changed the franchise and ensured the future for James Bond looks very bright indeed.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 25, 2024

Bond films are generally entertaining and this one is no exception. It’s just not exceptional.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2023

Everything you wanted! It’s Dr No meets Skyfall! Fukunaga crafted the most pure James Bond experience yet! Bringing a perfect, emotional, & VISCERAL send off for Daniel Craig. The action is insane, the score is PERFECTION, & such a smooth runtime!

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

The overall tone of the film is somber as time is brought up as a major theme to remind audiences their time with Craig is coming to a close.

Bond sequels have always recycled elements from its predecessors. But No Time to Die, the 25th film in the franchise, reaches back half a century to borrow almost exclusively from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

No Time To Die is the most emotional, personal James Bond movie of Daniel Craig's Era, holding a heartfelt farewell to the now-iconic actor. Massive praise to the outstanding ensemble cast.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 25, 2023

Add in a stellar performance from Daniel Craig, gorgeous cinematography from Director of Photography Linus Sandgren, and great direction from Cory Joji Fukunaga, and it’s one of the year’s best and an all-time Bond film.

Full Review | Feb 10, 2023

It's filled with a spectacularly grand "this is the end" feeling and heartfelt drama that is unquestionably earned after all of these years.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Dec 30, 2022

No Time to Die is an amalgam of all that has been the Craig Bond experience. The thrills are all still there and the action segments are among the best the franchise has offered.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 22, 2022

The 25th installment of the long-running spy series: James Bond film franchise. The blockbuster film's plot opened with a prologue explaining how Agent 007 James Bond's (Daniel Craig in his last outing as MI6 agent) former partner and psychotherapist

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 12, 2022

The action scenes aren’t particularly memorable like the parkour scene in Casino Royale. There’s no weighty grief in the way Bond nurses a broken heart in Quantum of Solace, and surely none of the bitterness or existential dread from Skyfall.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 5, 2022

No Time to Die is just this bloated, lumbering thing that is bogged down by the weight of what came before and it just ponders along until it collapses.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2022

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, “No Time to Die” comes packaged with everything you want from a Bond movie – big action, even bigger characters, plenty of style, and a special dash of heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Franchise familiarity bubbles away in the film's veins, expectedly, but Fukunaga knows what to shake, stir, change and challenge, and what makes a moving, ambitious and entertaining farewell.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2022

... A dark and assured piece of filmmaking, enjoyable from start to finish.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 29, 2022

Sometimes overexplains, and at times the script is condescending... though it leaves you satisfied in the end. Good fan service. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 6, 2022

Not the perfect send-off, but enough brilliant set-pieces.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2022

Fukunaga nurtures Bond’s emotional journey — such as it is; he’s not a master of brutality like John Wick, but neither is he Anne of Green Gables — down the home stretch.

Full Review | Jun 13, 2022

The film leaves one with a bittersweet farewell to the legacy that Craig has cemented while also maintaining a sense of optimism for what the future may hold.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 5, 2022

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Daniel craig in cary fukunaga’s ‘no time to die’: film review.

James Bond gets lured out of retirement and back into MI6 service when a new threat to the world and to someone he loves surfaces in Craig’s fifth and final 007 action thriller.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas in NO TIME TO DIE.

Anyone who has developed an attachment to the grit and gravitas, the coiled physicality and brooding demeanor that Daniel Craig has brought to the reinvigorated James Bond franchise, starting in 2006 with Casino Royale , will feel a surge of raw feeling in the devastating closing act of his fifth and final appearance in the role in No Time to Die .

The 25th installment in the venerable 007 series is the first to be directed by an American, Cary Joji Fukunaga , who handles the action with assurance and the more intimate interludes with sensitivity, never forgetting that there’s a wounded, vulnerable human being beneath the licensed-to-kill MI6 agent. The uneven movie’s big issue, however, is that the path to Craig’s momentous departure is drowning in plot; it’s so convoluted and protracted you might find yourself zoning out through much of the villainy.

Full credits

Cast: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, David Dencik, Ana de Armas, Billy Magnussen, Dali Benssalah Production companies: Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Distributor: United Artists Releasing Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga Screenwriters: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge Story: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, based on the James Bond novels and stories by Ian Fleming and the James Bond movies produced by Danjaq and its predecessors Producers: Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli Executive producer: Chris Brigham Director of photography: Linus Sandgren Production designer: Mark Tildesley Costume designer: Suttirat Anne Larlarb Music: Hans Zimmer, Steve Mazzaro Editors: Elliot Graham, Tom Cross Special effects supervisor: Chris Corbould Visual effects supervisor: Charlie Noble Casting: Debbie McWilliams

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No Time to Die First Reviews: A Spectacularly Fitting Sendoff for Daniel Craig's 007

Critics say the latest bond film is a worthy swan song for its longest-running star, with breathtaking action and a surprisingly emotional finale that might catch fans off guard..

TAGGED AS: 007 , Action , blockbusters , Film , films , james bond , movie , movies

It’s been six years since the release of the last James Bond movie, Spectre , which received the lowest Tomatometer score of Daniel Craig’ s run of the franchise. That means anticipation is very high and very demanding for the 25th installment, No Time to Die . Fortunately, reviews of the 007 sequel, which is also Craig’s last, claim it more than delivers. This Bond has all the action and cosmopolitan flair that fans expect while also offering a lot of unique twists on the character and his mythology. Unfortunately, it does seem to have a villain problem.

Here’s what critics are saying about No Time To Die :

So, mission accomplished?

“Raise a martini — it was worth the wait.” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine

“Worth the wait… I enjoyed it tremendously as a James Bond fan.” – Chris Bumbray, JoBlo

“ No Time to Die exceeds all expectations.” – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

“ No Time to Die is a disappointment but not a soul-killing whiff akin to Spectre .” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Is it one of the better Daniel Craig installments?

“Possibly the best film of the Craig era.” – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

“ No Time To Die is Daniel Craig’s best incarnation.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“It’s the third-best Daniel Craig Bond outing.” – Deirdre Molumby, entertainment.ie

“It might not hit the Skyfall and Casino Royale heights, but it’s a marked improvement on Spectre and will give fans plenty to savor.” – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

(Photo by Nicola Dove/©MGM/©Danjaq)

Is there a lot of fan service?

“The call-backs to the Bond mythology are fun yet resonate on a deeper level.” – Alistair Harkness, Scotsman

“There is a lightness that makes this final film in the Daniel Craig arc a true celebration of all things James Bond.” – Mike Reyes, Cinema Blend

“The film overcompensates to assure fans that James Bond is the ‘real 007.’” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Is it also one of the more original Bond movies?

“ No Time To Die aptly balances the franchise’s classic construct yet totally remakes what a Bond movie can be for a fitting, touching end to Craig’s tenure.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

“While the conventions can occasionally feel confining, there are enough significant deviations to make this entry stand out.” – Matt Maytum, Total Film

“This film does things that no Bond film has ever done… It is the unfamiliar things it does that make this such an exciting entry.” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine

“This is arguably the most tender portrait of James Bond we’ve ever seen.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“The 007 franchise-template is still capable of springing a surprise on the fanbase.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

How is the action?

“The stunts are simply spectacular, with one particular scene involving a motorbike in Italy that will leave you watching through splayed fingers in exhilarating fear.” – Dulcie Pearce, The Sun

“Craig also gets arguably the standout action sequence of his entire run with an astonishing and brutal one-take stairwell sequence.” – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

“The fight choreography by Patrick Vo is excellent, thorough and exciting. The stunts (coordinated by Lee Morrison and Petr Rychlý) are also thrilling.” – Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

“Fukunaga’s action seems to partly ape John Wick , with an emphasis on sharp, savage gunfights and intense chase sequences.” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine

Does it still feel more grounded and intense than most Bond movies?

“ No Time To Die looks like it is taking place in the real world, a huge wide open space that we’re all longing for.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The action’s outlandish yet grounded, the gadgets are ridiculous but work beautifully within the framework of a story.” – Alistair Harkness, Scotsman

“A Bond that is so thrillingly tense, it veers into something close to horror.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright in No Time to Die

How is the plot?

“The storyline feels like there were too many cooks, but it still tastes familiar enough to be craved.” – Dulcie Pearce, The Sun

“Fukunaga and his fellow writers inherited a whole mess of plot baggage from Spectre , and they handle it in the only way they possibly could.” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“ No Time to Die [is] a movie with a plot so ridiculous it reaches Roger Moore-era absurdness.” – Mike Ryan, Uproxx

“It’s so convoluted and protracted you might find yourself zoning out through much of the villainy.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

What if you haven’t seen the previous movies?

“You could probably understand it without fresh knowledge of the other movies. It will be a richer experience if you did know them, yet isn’t inaccessible to potential newcomers.” – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

“[As] an explicit sequel to Spectre … it undercuts the franchise’s appeal as escapist entertainment.” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Does it benefit from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s writing?

“This film is all about the girls. Unlike the previous 24 Bond films, the ladies in No Time to Die are more kick-ass than just, well, ass.” – Dulcie Pearce, The Sun

“Refreshingly, the women on screen — as uncommonly, unsurprisingly gorgeous as they all tend to be — read more like actual human beings than scenery here, and even James treats them accordingly.” – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“Another worthy note about No Time to Die is the contribution of Fleabag creator/star Phoebe Waller-Bridge to the screenplay.” – Dierdre Molumby, entertainment.ie

“The movie’s very best joke… classic Fleabag !” – Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard

“As much as Fukunaga and company try to diversify the franchise… This movie is solely concerned with white men who feel out of step with the world.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

How is Daniel Craig’s final Bond performance?

“Craig may well have delivered the most complex and layered Bond performance of them all.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“He is brilliant in No Time to Die , in a way that outshines everything around him.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

“I believe this is the best he’s ever done as Bond.” – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

“It’s clear that Craig knows and loves this character and that shines through.” – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

“I love Craig’s Bond, but there are times when he’s trying to be a Connery Bond in a clearly Roger Moore Bond movie.” – Mike Ryan, Uproxx

How is Rami Malek’s villain?

“Rami Malek is a menacing presence as Safin and as with the best of Bond villains, less is more.” – Ian Sandwell, Digital Spy

“Rami Malek seems to be enjoying playing the villain, and that glee is infectious.” – Deirdre Molumby, entertainment.ie

“As a villain, he’s no fun, and Malek can’t do much to make him memorable.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“More a grab bag of character motivations than a felt threat. But Malek’s performance is also lacking.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

“Malek himself gives almost nothing to the role beyond the accent and the fake scars he wears.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

“He is too young, too wet, and too unscary to be a classic Bond villain. He looks as if he spends more time on his haircare than his evil plans.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC

“He’s not the most cogent bad guy ever, but he has ocean eyes.” – Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard

“This underwritten and almost incidental role feels entirely left on the cutting room floor.” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

How about Lashanna Lynch as the new 007?

“Lynch is pretty kick-ass in the role…she more than holds her own alongside Craig, injecting the early parts of the film with a fun spy-vs-spy energy.” – Alistair Harkness, Scotsman

“Lynch’s Nomi is a wonderful anomaly. And she has super-duper taste in trousers.” – Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard

Will we want more of any other characters?

“Everyone is going to claim to want a Paloma spin-off.” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

“The swift exit of [Ana de Armas’ Paloma] once the action moves on from Cuba is a real disappointment. The character begs for a recurring role in future installments.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Please, please, please, can someone give Q his own spin-off movie?” – Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard

Will we feel that record running time (163 minutes)?

“ No Time to Die is so, so long. But I wish it went a little longer if only to see how else Craig could’ve pushed this dinosaur.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

“While the pace never lags and there’s never a moment when you could get bored, it’s just a lot of movie with a ton going on and it’s exhausting.” – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

“The run length alone dilutes the intended emotional resonance of the final scenes.” – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“You really start to feel the pacing of the longest Bond installment.” – Deirdre Molumby, entertainment.ie

So is No Time to Die a proper goodbye to Daniel Craig’s 007?

“As Craig’s swan song, No Time to Die is everything one could ask for in a final outing.” – Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

“It’s a moving valedictory salute to the actor who has left arguably the most indelible mark on the character since Connery.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“ No Time to Die is his perfect ending, a moment worth toasting as a wistful rejection of a character that’ll never be the same without him.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

“Gives both Bond and audiences the goodbye he deserves.” – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

“What’s most disappointing about the film is how strangely anti-climatic the whole thing feels.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

“I was hoping No Time to Die would give Daniel Craig a noble swan song, but it’ll have to settle for merely being better than Diamonds Are Forever , A View to A Kill and Die Another Day .” – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Will this finale leave us in tears?

“It leaves you with emotions few filmgoers will be expecting to find in a big budget action film.” – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects

“ No Time to Die will be remembered for its emotional impact above all.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“I never thought I’d wipe away a tear at the end of a James Bond movie, but No Time to Die fulfills its promise.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“I want to watch James Bond and feel good after…not feel forlorn.” – Mike Ryan, Uproxx

(Photo by ©MGM/©Danjaq)

Will it be a hard act to follow?

“Whoever’s next has got one hell of job on their hands.” – Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“Whoever steps in next has enormous shoes to fill.” – Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics

No Time to Die is in theaters on October 8, 2021.

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‘No Time to Die’ Review: Daniel Craig’s Bond Gets the Send-Off He Deserves in the Series’ Best Entry Since ‘Casino Royale’

Director Cary Joji Fukunaga fuses all the elements of a good 007 adventure, including that ineffable touch of soul.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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“ No Time to Die ” is a terrific movie: an up-to-the-minute, down-to-the-wire James Bond thriller with a satisfying neoclassical edge. It’s an unabashedly conventional Bond film that’s been made with high finesse and just the right touch of soul, as well as enough sleek surprise to keep you on edge.

Before I go further, though, let me lay my baccarat cards on the table. I thought “Casino Royale,” the first film in which Daniel Craig portrayed 007, was the greatest Bond film since the early Sean Connery days, and in many ways the most perfectly realized Bond movie ever. (I’ve seen it countless times, and it’s one of my favorite films of its era.) To me, the trio of Bond films that came after “Casino Royale” have added up to one of the most profoundly disappointing follow-throughs of any contemporary film series. “Quantum of Solace” was all trumped-up mechanics, “Spectre” was an elaborate piece of product that went through the motions — and “Skyfall,” though I realize many Bond watchers think it’s a masterpiece, was, to me, sodden and overstated, with a meta-hammy megalomaniac performance by Javier Bardem and a backstory to Bond that was maudlin with self-pity. The film was trying to be “emotional,” but that poor-little-spy-boy origin story didn’t enlarge Bond — it diminished him.

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Beyond that, though, there needs to be a touch of mystery to Bond. That’s the quality that “Casino Royale” brought back to the series through its fantastically tricky dramatization of the relationship between Craig’s fast, steely, roughneck Bond and Eva Green’s insinuating Vesper Lynd. And “No Time to Die,” though it’s not the work of art “Casino Royale” was, possesses just enough of that quality. Ideally, there’s a romance to a James Bond movie — I don’t just mean a love story, but a romance to Bond’s presence, a grander motive behind the ruthless execution of his every move. “No Time to Die” has that.

In the introductory sequence, we see Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine as a young girl and the cataclysm she endured at the hands of a man in a white mask who came to her house to kill her father — who was a member of SPECTRE, and had murdered the masked man’s family. So Madeleine, in her way, has emerged from a chain of vengeance. Then we cut to Bond and the adult Madeleine cruising through the mountain roads of Italy in his Aston Martin. When Madeleine tells him to drive faster, he says they’ve got all the time in the world.

But the idyll is short-lived, as SPECTRE agents hunt them down. How did they know Bond was there? In the midst of some razory action, the most riveting moment is one of pure inaction : Bond brings the gizmo-laden car to a stop in the middle of a town square, a dozen gunmen firing right at him, blasting away at his bullet-proof windows. The windows don’t look that secure, yet Bond does nothing. He’s telling Madeleine, through his silent passive fury: “I know you led them here. I know you betrayed me. Who cares if we live or die?” “No Time to Die” is a popcorn riff on the theme of fatal trust.

That theme gets played out on a grand scale. Bond, drawn back into action, joins forces with the CIA and heads to Santiago de Cuba, where SPECTRE is holding a kind of underworld convention, all built around the criminal cult’s stolen possession of Project Heracles — a chemical weapons project in which the biohazard in question poisons you by injecting your bloodstream with nanobots, which become vehicles for toxifying your DNA, which can then be spread. The contagion element, as conceived in the script, predated COVID (since the film was ready to be released last year), but it acquires a queasy topical resonance, especially when we learn that M (Ralph Fiennes), glowering with anxiety, has a darker agenda than usual. In the old days, Project Heracles could have emerged only from a villainous mastermind. Now it’s a power that the good guys want in their possession. In “No Time to Die,” the whole global order is tainted, which makes Bond even more of a rogue operator.

In Cuba, Bond hooks up with his old CIA colleague Felix Leiter, played with his usual stalwart gusto by Jeffrey Wright, and with Paloma (Ana de Armas), an agent in a slip of a black cocktail dress who turns out to be less naïve than she says. Here’s a place where the film is downright debonair in its cleverness: The espionage logistics between Bond and Paloma are so impeccably timed that they give off a ripe erotic charge — but in the old days, these two would have dropped right into bed. The fact that they don’t deprives the film of nothing; if anything, it’s all hotter as a flippant flirtation. Billy Magnussen, who is such a sly actor, is also on hand as a grinning stooge of a CIA novice who’s a “fan” of Bond’s, until he isn’t.

Craig, his hair chopped into a bristle cut, has mastered the art of making Bond a seemingly invincible force who is also a human being with hidden vulnerabilities. There’s another scene that, decades ago, would have been a seduction — but is now a far more nonchalant encounter between Bond and Nomi (Lashana Lynch), an up-and-coming MI6 agent who has been assigned the codename of…007. For a moment, we look at Lashana Lynch, who makes every line sparkle with a kind of dry sauciness, and think: Could this be the new — the next — James Bond? But the interplay between Nomi and Bond tells a story of its own. It is, on some level, about Bond making way for the new world. The trick is, he’s more than ready to go there. And the film, in a kind of bait-and-switch, is both offering up an honestly progressive piece of casting and winking at our heightened awareness of how much the Bond series could use it.

“No Time to Die,” at heart, is a traditional Bond film, and that’s part of its pleasure. But it’s not just the running time that feels more epic than usual. The movie wants to do full justice to the emotional thrust of this being Daniel Craig’s exit from the series. And it does. The main story is set five years after that opening sequence, when Bond and Madeleine have parted ways. They’re reunited through Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), now a in a padded cell in London, where he’s more Hannibal Lecter than jabbering loony; yet he hasn’t lost his ability to control. Madeleine is a psychiatrist who has access to Blofeld, and when she and Bond meet again, it’s so that Bond can have a face-to-face with the villain he put behind bars. In his one major scene, Waltz invests Blofeld with a more exquisite menace than he did in all of “Spectre.” Blofeld is two steps ahead of Bond, even though his bio-weapon is a step ahead of him.

The film’s main villain is Rami Malek as Lyutsifer Safin, who made his presence felt in the movie before we even knew it. Malek, with mottled skin, an all-seeing leer, and the caressing voice of a depraved monk, makes him a hypnotic creep. (He could give Bardem a master class in how to underplay the overstatement.) Safin has, of course, headquartered himself on a remote island, which is where he’s perfecting his poison and everything he plans to do with it. The setting, and the chem-lab ickiness, are very “You Only Live Twice,” but what’s so good about Malek’s performance is the obscene way that he inserts his presence into the drama of Bond, Madeleine, and Madeline’s young daughter, Mathilde. Bond is there to save the world; he’s there to save Madeleine and Mathilide; he’s there to save himself. Can he do all three? What happens in the climactic scene feels poetic: Bond, in a strange way, takes on the karma of all the people he has killed. I never thought I’d wipe away a tear at the end of a James Bond movie, but “No Time to Die” fulfills its promise. It finishes off the saga of Craig’s 007 in the most honestly extravagant of style.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, New York, Sept. 28, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 163 MIN.

Production: A United Artists release of a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Eon Productions production. Producers: Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli. Executive producer: Chris Brigham.
Crew: Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga. Screenplay: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Camera: Linus Sandgren. Editors: Elliot Graham, Tom Cross. Music: Hans Zimmer.
With: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Jeffrey Wright, Ana de Armas, Billy Magnussen, Christoph Waltz, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear.

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‘No Time to Die’ Review: Daniel Craig Says Goodbye to Bond with Most Emotional 007 Movie Ever

David ehrlich.

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James Bond has saved the world two dozen times during the last half-century, but the stakes have never been higher than they are in Cary Joji Fukunaga’s long-awaited (and even longer-delayed) “ No Time to Die .” This mega-blockbuster is saddled with the extraordinary pressure of salvaging the Daniel Craig era from the ruins of “Spectre,” justifying the spy franchise’s decision to abandon standalone adventures in favor of a more serialized arc, and resolving its current run in a way that allows the 007 brand to stay relevant in the face of a Marvel-dominated future that has little room for 59-year-old sex pests on her majesty’s Secret Service. Phew.

While several Bonds have come and gone before, none of them have ever really needed to say goodbye — they were all effectively just replacing each other on the same deathless merry-go-round. One unflappably suave British man would get off, and another would step into the open car he left behind. These were movies without a memory, and that was a signature part of their timeless (if always trend-driven) charm. Even after 007’s new wife was assassinated in the closing moments of one film, he was literally a different person by the time the next began.

But the Craig-starring saga has played by its own rules from the start. “Casino Royale” cut Bond too deep for his scars to be Etch-a-Sketched away overnight, and so “Quantum of Solace” became the series’ first proper sequel. “Skyfall” explored the past of a character who had always existed in an eternal present, while “Spectre” clumsily attempted to connect that present to a past the character had long outgrown (thereby inventing a template that “Rise of the Skywalker” would later perfect into a miserable art form).

And so, in what now seems like an inevitable course-correction, “No Time to Die” is a story about the need to leave certain things behind. It’s the modern spy movie equivalent of “The Last Jedi,” as the universe tells James Bond that he has no choice but to let the past die — to kill it if he has to — and dares Craig to pull the trigger. The actor barely even blinks. Instead, he limps, smirks, and shoots his way through five erratic movies’ worth of pent-up emotion in order to make you cry. The result might be the least exciting Bond film of the 21st century, but it’s undeniably also the most moving.

At the end of the day, “No Time to Die” is a second chance at ending Craig’s run on a strong note and tying up all of the frayed threads that “Spectre” left blowing in the wind, and it makes good on that potential even at the expense of several new shortcomings. Written by Bond custodians Neal Purvis and Robert Wade — with assists from Fukunaga and Phoebe “Fleabag” godhead Waller-Bridge — the movie is fittingly also 007’s second chance at the happiness that slipped through his fingers when he took Vesper Lynd on the worst trip to Venice since “Don’t Look Now.” And from the moment it starts with the least Bond-like cold open in the franchise’s history, it’s clear that the spy’s 25th official outing will move forward with at least one eye locked on the rearview mirror. By the time Billie Eilish starts belting out the film’s downbeat title song more than 25 minutes later, it seems entirely possible that Bond may not be able to move forward at all.

It begins in a remote patch of Norwegian nowhere some two decades ago, when the eventual Dr. Madeleine Swann — then only a little girl who’s unaware that her father works for Spectre, or that she’ll have the good fortune of growing up to become Léa Seydoux — is visited by a killer in a porcelain mask. “Your father kills people,” the uninvited visitor says to her. “Is that who you love? A murderer?” He might as well be talking to Madeleine (and to us as well) about her future boyfriend. But times change, and James Bond has always been able to change with them, at least to a certain degree. So when 007 and Madeleine arrive in the hilltop village of Matera for an all-too-perfect Italian holiday, she encourages him to stop by Vesper’s grave; Madeleine is smart enough to recognize that James would only share his future with someone if they were able to be honest about their respective pasts. To recognize that they each have them, and ought to keep them where they belong. And that’s when things start blowing up.

The chase that follows is far and away the most exciting action setpiece in the entire film, and yet for all of its death-defying leaps and spinning machine-gun cars there’s something muted about the whole affair. The sequence climaxes with an emotionally unnerving (and somewhat unhinged) test of wills unlike anything this series has ever attempted before, and surrenders to the opening credits on a note that feels like it was borrowed from one of Richard Linklater’s “Before” movies.

There’s another smash-and-grab bit of carnage when “No Time to Die” picks up again five years later — a bio-weapon heist that takes full advantage of Bond’s retirement from MI6. Not long after that, Ana de Armas swings in for a sublimely charming cameo set in neon-lit Havana, where a Spectre party ends in a frenetic shootout. But such high-octane moments prove to be the exceptions to the rule, as it grows increasingly evident that Fukunaga isn’t following the franchise’s usual template.

B25_39456_RC2James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) inNO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios filmCredit: Nicola Dove© 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Sure, the movie touches upon all of the expected Bond tropes: Felix Leiter, explosive watches, a slightly disfigured and wholly underwritten villain who lives on an island fortress somewhere between Russia and Japan (more on him in a minute), etc. There’s even a fight scene in which 007 appears to drink more shots than he fires. And yet “No Time to Die” can’t seem to get through this stuff fast enough — it’s like there’s somewhere else the film would rather be. Someone else its hero would rather be with .

What little action this movie has to offer beyond its pulse-raising prologue is contained in short spurts that emphasize intentionality over destruction, the most effective of them being a cat-and-mouse sequence (with serious “Metal Gear Solid” overtones) that patiently watches Bond set up a series of tripwires, only for 007 to off the bad guys in a hurry when they fall into his trap. In other words, anyone hoping for spectacle on par with what Martin Campbell brought to “Goldeneye” and “Casino Royale” will be sorely disappointed by what Fukunaga musters here, even if the film takes full advantage of its IMAX-scale presentation by the end.

Over time, this approach slowly becomes more of a feature than a bug, as a standard-issue story about a gene-targeting nanobot weapon capable of targeting specific individuals (or entire ethnicities) is revealed to be nothing but a simple backdrop for a melodrama that’s only masquerading as an action movie. Fukunaga and his fellow writers inherited a whole mess of plot baggage from “Spectre,” and they handle it in the only way they possibly could without replacing Craig altogether: They sign over that baggage to Bond instead, tie all of the dead weight from the previous movie onto his flailing body like an anchor around a sailor lost at sea, and challenge him to slip free of it before he drowns in his own past.

By that logic, it’s almost tempting to wonder if Rami Malek is deliberately forgettable as the standard-issue villain who checks all of the expected boxes, never reveals even a semi-cogent explanation for his evil plan, and only exists to make Bond confront his own demons. Few actors could redeem a role this basic — a role so broadly sketched to be 007’s negative image — and Malek isn’t one of them. His instinct to go full Jared Leto in “Blade Runner 2049” is all wrong for Bond’s ultimate adversary, or it would be if Lyutsifer Safin were meant to be more of a threat to Bond than Bond is to himself. “I want the world to evolve,” Lyutsifer whispers at the hero spy in his hodgepodge of a Eastern European accent, “while you want it to stay the same.” One day, see-through self-analysis might not be the only way that Hollywood blockbusters are allowed to be smart, but for now it’s nice to see one so willing to define its terms for us, and so eager to illustrate them with such clever examples (Lashana Lynch is a total blast as the MI6 agent Nomi, both a worthy rival for Bond as well as a potential replacement).

Of course, a simple “evolve or die” situation wouldn’t satisfy a legacy as rich as Bond’s, nor a performance as layered as Craig’s. From the moment he got his license to kill, Craig has stood out from his predecessors for being the most bulletproof 007 to ever wear that tuxedo, but also the most vulnerable. His Bond is as sensitive as an exposed nerve, and yet still able to laugh off a direct blow to the testicles from Mads Mikkelsen; he bleeds the same way as the rest of us, but scabs over twice as hard. Connery will always be treasured for giving birth to the character, but it’s Craig who finally allowed him to grow up.

Here — in the actor’s final and most affecting go — Bond takes stock of his wounds in order to understand what they were ultimately worth to him, and his conclusion is, in its own absurd way, worth the long and winding road this franchise has taken to get there. “If you have nothing left to give,” someone tells Bond, “you are irrelevant.” But he does. And by figuring out what that is, he buys the franchise that bears his name a new hope for the future. It will probably be a minute before the powers that be decide what that future will look like, but that’s okay. Bond doesn’t need to go faster — he has all the time in the world.

MGM will release “No Time to Die” in U.S. theaters on Friday, October 8.

As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the safety precautions provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available.

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No Time to Die review: An emotional swan song for the best Bond ever

With an emotional heart and a progressive mind, No Time to Die bids a fond farewell to Daniel Craig.

It had to end this way.

After 15 years and five movies, Daniel Craig’s tenure as a gritty, modernized James Bond comes to a close in the stunning No Time to Die.

Guided by the steady hand of director Cary Joji Fukunaga (of HBO’s surreal True Detective ), No Time to Die does bid a fond farewell to Craig. But first, it allows its lead to showcase new sides of the world’s best-known secret agent.

As No Time to Die opens, 007 is monogamous, in love, and more human than seemingly possible. Exploring this new emotional territory gives the film a fresh charge, even before it sets about delivering all the expertly crafted, white-knuckle thrills that seem tailor-made for the franchise at this point.

That’s not to say the film is flawless. It’s overlong, and a tragically turgid Rami Malek — as the villainous Safin — threatens to stop No Time to Die dead in its tracks. But the heart and soul of Bond, who for once displays both in spades, are laid bare by Craig’s performance in a movie that asks him gracefully — and if you ask him, mercifully — to leave it all behind.

Daniel Craig returns for one last ride as James Bond in No Time to Die , along with French actress Léa Seydoux reprising her role from 2015’s SPECTRE .

No Time to Die does something rare for James Bond: It continues a pre-existing story. In the wake of 2015’s dreadful SPECTRE , a powerful bioweapon has fallen into the hands of the masked Safin (Malek), whose intentions are to unleash the virus worldwide. Bond is pulled out of retirement by the CIA — which puts Bond at odds with his former MI6 employers and his 007 replacement, a by-the-books agent named Nomi (Lashana Lynch, Captain Marvel ). Things get more complicated when Bond partners with his ex, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), who’s been keeping secrets from Bond.

Fukunaga is the first American director to helm a Bond film. His measured storytelling perfectly suits the precise compositions and grounded action that have defined the franchise’s Craig era. And yet Fukunaga’s involvement is just one way No Time to Die signals change, which governs the film’s existential core.

Previous entries like Skyfall dealt with an aging Bond, one who struggles to prove he’s still the best in the field. But No Time to Die finds Bond tired and disillusioned, advising government agencies to get off his scenic Jamaican lawn. Mirroring Craig’s ambivalence towards the series — six years ago, the actor told Time Out he’d “slash [his] wrists” than play Bond again — Bond is retired and wants it to stay that way. And that’s just the start of No Time to Die.

Daniel Craig Lashana Lynch No Time to Die

Lashana Lynch, as new 007 agent “Nomi,” with co-star Daniel Craig, in No Time to Die .

Sitting out in cozy Italian hotels means letting the world change without bearing witness to it. These days, experiencing life in the field is more the territory of Nomi, the new 007, played by a methodical Lynch. Eschewing the quips and quirks with which a typical superhero movie would saddle such a character in this scenario, Lynch’s Nomi is refreshingly playful yet restrained. She’s driven to succeed within MI6 and moves according to MI6 standards, in contrast to Bond’s reckless penchant for going rogue. None of Bond’s charms work on Nomi — nor the other “Bond girl,” Paloma, a CIA recruit (played by Craig’s Knives Out co-star Ana de Armas in a glorified cameo).

Acknowledging the hedonism that often characterizes (or arguably plagues) Bond’s stories, No Time to Die presents a Bond who strikes out with beautiful women, all of whom are equally or more capable than himself. What’s more, he accepts his losses and carries on. (Contrast this with a distressingly handsy Sean Connery in Thunderball . ) It’s a different world Bond has woken up to find himself living in. But he’s doing just fine, for the record.

There’s more to Bond’s existential evolution than just his shift away from misogynistic rapscallion, mainly through his emotional commitment to Madeleine. Seydoux returns from SPECTRE , bringing a textured performance and cherubic face that Fukunaga utilizes fully through extreme close-ups. Madeleine’s the first “Bond girl” in ages to progress from film to film.

At the risk of spoilers, one can say that — whether it’s through the characters surrounding Bond or through his behavior — No Time to Die allows the 007 we know and love to act in ways that break from the character this half-a-century-old franchise has outlined. And yet, this feels less sacrilegious than it does intelligent and agile. No Time to Die is bold enough to evolve the James Bond persona because Craig can pull off such surprises. And this being his final movie, what harm could it do?

Ana de Armas ( Knives Out ) appears in No Time to Die as CIA operative Paloma, in an all-too-brief supporting role.

If there’s a chink in the film’s armor, it’s Malek as Safin, a mastermind who’s both overwritten and underwhelming. Malek is at least visually fearsome as a villain, with an eerie porcelain kabuki mask that conceals his more hideous visage.

But as played by an accomplished actor such as Malek, Safin is disappointingly more important to the film’s backstory than its immediate execution. Malek drones through the role, suggesting the screenwriters started with a 50-page story bible they perhaps wisely discarded after the third round of drafts.

His motivations are unclear, and his machinations lofty in a credulity-stretching way, to put it lightly. It should be said that watching a James Bond movie with a virus subplot isn’t as exhausting as it might seem in 2021. It is exhausting to keep up with how the virus is weaponized and why anyone would want to deploy it. More is head-scratching than heart-racing when it comes to Safin, and that muddy foundation makes No Time to Die seem poised to buckle across its nearly three-hour runtime.

But with its dexterously executed action sequences, the best opening titles since Casino Royale , and all the exotic scenery escapism that makes one remember Bond movie tickets are still the cheapest way to travel, No Time to Die is a triumph. It succeeds most by honoring its lead; portraying a vastly more humane (and still very funny) Bond, Craig gets the proper sendoff he deserves.

His exit takes place amid all manner of theatrical fireworks, with naked sentimentality mixed in with a refreshingly progressive perspective that often challenges franchise tradition. Not all the big swings connect. But No Time to Die is a towering testament to Craig’s Bond, the dramatic leaps he’s been willing to take, and the great heights to which the best of his films have soared as a result.

No Time to Die opens in theaters on October 8.

This article was originally published on Oct. 7, 2021

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Daniel Craig outshines 'No Time To Die' in his final turn as James Bond

Justin Chang

Bond (Daniel Craig) teams up with secret agent Paloma (Ana de Armas) in Havana in No Time to Die. Nicola Dove/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios hide caption

Bond (Daniel Craig) teams up with secret agent Paloma (Ana de Armas) in Havana in No Time to Die.

It's been more than a year since No Time to Die was supposed to open in theaters, and while the pandemic is far from over, the movie's long-overdue release feels like a good omen for an industry that could use it .

Never mind if James Bond can save the world — can he save the movies in the era of COVID and streaming-service domination? I have no idea. I can only say that it's a poignant pleasure to see Daniel Craig as Bond on the big screen one last time, even if the movie around him is seldom as good as he is.

Daniel Craig is the bookend Bond, giving 007's story a beginning — and an end

But then that's always been the case with the Craig Bond movies, with the sole exception of Casino Royale , the first and still the best of the five. Craig put his imprint on the character from the get-go: Like any good 007, he showed he could rock a tuxedo and toss off double-entendres with ease.

Bond With A Broken Heart: Defending Daniel Craig

But he was also a colder, broodier James Bond — closer to Sean Connery than Roger Moore , but with an aching vulnerability all his own. With this Bond, it was personal: We saw just how anguished he could be when he lost the love of his life, Vesper Lynd, a tragedy that haunted him over the next few movies and continues to haunt him in this one.

As No Time to Die begins, Bond has been retired from active MI6 duty for some time and started a new life with Madeleine Swann, played by Léa Seydoux. But he can't shake the memory of Vesper, and before long tragedy tears Bond and Madeleine apart, setting a somber tone that's beautifully captured by Billie Eilish 's opening theme song.

Coronavirus Updates

New 007 release delayed for 3rd time as pandemic continues to batter film industry.

Five years later, Bond is bumming around Jamaica when a fresh criminal conspiracy convinces him to end his retirement. The plot is too busy and complicated to summarize at length: Let's just say it involves a deadly plague of DNA-targeting nanobots that could wipe out millions of people worldwide, which feels just close enough to our real-life pandemic to suggest why the studio might have opted to hold the picture back a year.

That said, nothing about No Time to Die feels especially timely or urgent. It's the usual assembly of Bond movie clichés, which is nothing to complain about, of course, since clichés — the gadgets, the one-liners, the martinis, the sex — are the lifeblood of this series.

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Bond gadgets stand test of time (but not physics).

But more than once during No Time to Die , I found myself wondering if those familiar beats couldn't have been hit with a bit more panache. Did it really take four screenwriters — including the great Phoebe Waller-Bridge , the comic genius behind Fleabag — to come up with a script this workmanlike? And between Christoph Waltz as returning villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Rami Malek as new villain Lyutsifer Safin, did the movie really need two scheming megalomaniacs, both of whom have facial disfigurements to conveniently signal how evil they are?

Back at MI6, Lashana Lynch plays a highly competent new spy who's been assigned Bond's 007 code number. But their professional rivalry never really takes off. The movie is on more solid footing with Bond's old colleagues: Ralph Fiennes ' M, Naomie Harris ' Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw's Q are as delightful company as ever. And a terrific if under-used Ana de Armas nearly steals the picture as an agent who teams up with Bond during a mission in Havana. It's a witty, suspenseful sequence, with enough flirtatious fun and outlandish stuntwork to recapture some of that escapist Bond-movie pleasure.

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Picking the best bond: connery and craig rise to the top.

For the most part, that pleasure returns only fitfully over the movie's two-hour-and-43-minute running time. The director, Cary Joji Fukunaga , whose credits include the African war drama Beasts of No Nation and the first season of True Detective , is a skilled filmmaker with a snazzy way with action. But this is a twilight Bond movie, and the mood is overwhelmingly somber. There are continual reminders of Bond's advancing age, of his past regrets and losses. The final showdown feels less like a climax than a benediction.

Craig has been a terrific James Bond, maybe even the best, and his departure certainly deserves a little fanfare. But I admired the impulse behind this very long goodbye without feeling as moved as I wanted to be. There's something a little too strained and self-conscious about the tragic emotional arc the filmmakers have saddled Bond with over the past several movies, and it feels like more than the character can withstand. Will Bond ever be allowed to be Bond again, a dashing rogue leaping deftly from caper to caper? Not this time — but maybe the next.

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No Time to Die Review: Daniel Craig Carries One of a Kind James Bond Sendoff

Daniel Craig’s last outing as James Bond in No Time to Die is brilliant in every sense of the word. And then there’s the rest of the movie.

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Daniel Craig as James Bond in No Time to Die

Let there be no doubt about it: in his final outing as James Bond, Daniel Craig gives his finest performance yet in the role. His 007 is a near-perfect fusion of strength, brutality, resourcefulness, humor, inner pain, and physical weariness—making the Bond of No Time to Die possibly the most layered and multi-dimensional edition of the character in the franchise’s entire 59-year run. While Bond’s never been the most complex of onscreen characters, past attempts at fleshing him out in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Craig’s debut, Casino Royale , have been surpassed here.

But then there’s also the movie itself, all 163 minutes of it, which makes it the longest Bond adventure to date. To be honest, it sometimes feels like it too. No Time to Die , directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga ( True Detective ), ties up a lot of loose ends and brings back a lot of characters from the Craig era for an encore while also delivering some of the series’ most smashing and intense action sequences. Yet the story at the core of the movie is thin, the villain not well defined, and the movie at times feels like it’s wrapping up those other storylines at the expense of a more dynamic central plot.

The opening pre-credits sequence (which we didn’t time, but which may be the longest in the series’ history) actually consists of two: the first is a flashback to a terrible childhood tragedy endured by Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux), the woman whom Bond drove off with and into retirement at the end of 2015’s Spectre . As we emerge from the flashback, we now find that Bond and Madeline are indeed still together and very much in love—although their happiness, of course, doesn’t last long.

By the time the opening titles roll, the couple have been attacked by a literal army of SPECTRE agents and finally separated, with Bond losing whatever trust he had in Madeline. Five years later, Bond is living a solitary existence in Jamaica, apparently well and truly retired, when he gets a call from an old friend: CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, a welcome and too-brief presence).

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Felix has an off-the-books mission for Bond: track down a rogue scientist (David Dencik) who is in cahoots with SPECTRE (or so he thinks) and has made off with a deadly biological weapon. But there is another adversary lurking in the shadows and pulling everyone’s strings, which results in Bond getting yanked back into service, clashing with M ( Ralph Fiennes ), getting reluctant backup from Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw), and going head-to-head with the fiery new 007 (Lashana Lynch), a more than formidable foil for her predecessor.

The new villain is named Safin (Rami Malek), and it seems he has a vendetta against certain people specifically, and the rest of the world in general. As Bond races to find him and learn what he’s up to, his journey brings him back into contact with Madeline and also necessitates a visit to old foster brother and arch-nemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) in a Silence of the Lambs -type encounter that finds the one-eyed baddie picking away at Bond’s psyche in classic Lector fashion.

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Make no mistake, No Time to Die delves into 007’s psyche with perhaps more depth and profundity than any of the previous two dozen pictures in the official canon, and it’s those moments where we see all those emotions and responses on Craig’s face that are among the best in the film. But the narrative itself (in somewhat similar fashion to Spectre ) often feels like Fukunaga and his three co-writers (which include Phoebe Waller-Bridge and longtime Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) are checking off boxes until they can get to the big emotional crescendos that they’re really interested in.

The overall effect is a movie that is frequently entertaining, often intense, yet never quite creates the majestic sweep of other behemoths like The Dark Knight or Avengers: Infinity War . It feels both overstuffed and sparse; Ana de Armas gets one extended scene as an agent who’s paired with Bond in Cuba, and she’s delightful, but she’s gone after that and you end up wondering if she even needed to be there. The same with the revisits to characters like Felix and Blofeld—they’re fun to see again, but they might have been rewritten out of the script with little difficulty.

More problematic are Madeline and Safin. We never bought the relationship between Bond and Madeline in Spectre ; it seemed to happen too quickly and be saddled with too much unearned weight. It’s a pale imitation of the truly incendiary love affair with Eva Green’s doomed Vesper in Casino Royale . To make their relationship the linchpin of No Time to Die feels off-balance as well. As for Safin, Rami Malek is slithery and creepy, but his motivations are muddled and his plan comes off as kind of a cross between earlier Bond villains like The Spy Who Loved Me ’s Karl Stromberg and Marvel’s genocidal Thanos.

That puts the load squarely on Craig’s broad shoulders, but luckily he can handle it all with the help of Fukunaga’s visceral direction, some truly jaw-dropping action and Hans Zimmer’s propulsive score (in which one can hear a few nods to his previous famous work on The Dark Knight trilogy). Yet it all comes down to Craig: the man is compulsively, endlessly watchable as Bond, he gets some good jokes and meatier dialogue this time, and you almost wish that he would stick around for another entry.

No Time to Die strives to be an epic and just misses; it’s certainly a huge movie and there’s a lot of it, but it never quite takes your breath away. Yet Daniel Craig does achieve that effect as Bond, giving a final performance that the series has never quite seen before. His 007 has always been different in many ways from the five previous versions, but now we can add another: unlike nearly every one of his predecessors , his has a sign-off for the ages. Whatever issues No Time to Die may have, Craig’s farewell will leave you shaken and stirred.

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No Time to Die opens in the UK on Sept. 30 and in the U.S. on Oct. 8.

3.5 out of 5

Don Kaye | @donkaye

Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…

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No Time to Die Is Fun, But Only When It Dares to Be

“This never happened to the other fella.” That might have been George Lazenby’s quip in the opening sequence of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but it’s also become the rallying cry for the Daniel Craig era of Bond pictures, which began with him as an inexperienced, impulsive agent just earning his license to kill in Casino Royale (2006) and ends now with him as a weathered, embittered, desperately-in-love man in No Time to Die . In retrospect, it feels as if Lazenby’s cute, fourth-wall-breaking acknowledgment (reportedly ad-libbed on set by the star himself) that his post-Connery turn might be a different Bond perhaps liberated the series a little: Once that line landed, nobody had to worry about keeping any kind of consistency between Bond actors, or even individual movies.

Of course, within the actual Craig cycle, the inter-film callbacks and echoes and through lines have been nonstop — and not always for the best. At the start of No Time to Die , Bond is still grieving Vesper Lynd, his lover and partner from Casino Royale , while also committing to a life with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), the assassin’s daughter and psychiatrist he romanced (rather unconvincingly) in Spectre (2015). This new one even opens with an episode from Madeleine’s childhood that she’d related in that previous entry, only now it’s been revised to become our introduction to Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), a psycho who went off the deep end after his whole family was killed by Madeleine’s father, Mr. White.

White was, as you may or may not recall from the previous film, an assassin working for SPECTRE, the international criminal organization led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the devious mastermind whom Bond made sure to lock up at the end of that picture. Staying true to our modern age of action movies-as-elaborate-soap operas, it also turned out that Blofeld — organ music, please — is Bond’s long-lost adopted brother. No, this definitely never happened to the other fellas.

Indeed, the central project of the Daniel Craig era could easily be seen as an experiment to see how un-Bond-like one could make these films while still being able to call them Bond films. The experiment reaches its apotheosis in No Time to Die , which opens with Bond in love, then moves on to Bond betrayed, then Bond retired, then Bond working for the CIA, before bringing Bond back into the fold of MI6, where it turns out he’s actually been replaced by a new 007, Nomi, played by Lashana Lynch. (If you think those are spoilers, note that I’ve said nothing of Bond’s [ redacted ], his discovery of [ redacted ], or the dramatic [ redacted ]s of [ redacted ], [ redacted ], and [ redacted ].)

There are opportunities here, many of them missed: The two 007s have a playful rivalry at first, and one wishes the script featured more of their repartee. Lynch certainly seems game, with her character handling Bond with just the right combination of admiration and annoyance. And we know Craig has solid comic chops, as evidenced by some of his previous outings and by the levity he brought to, um, Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005). If nothing else, Lynch’s 007 seems like a more interesting character for Bond to spend time with than Madeleine; the lack of chemistry between Seydoux and Craig really grates this time around, which wouldn’t be a problem were the film not built around James Bond’s passionate love for this woman. (Craig and Eva Green had it in spades in Casino Royale , which is why we can still buy the fact that Bond is visiting Vesper’s grave, four films later.)

One interesting note on the picture’s otherwise-forgettable (though refreshingly Bondian) MacGuffin: Everyone is after a bioweapon that uses nanobot technology to target specific individuals and anyone else who happens to share their DNA, and which Safin clearly has diabolical plans for. We all remember that No Time to Die was due to open in spring of 2020, right as the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting. News of the release being delayed was among the first signs that much of the global entertainment industry was about to shut down, along with just about everything else. One does wonder what it would have felt like in the middle of 2020 to watch a James Bond film about what was essentially a deadly virus being released into the world.

Some wondered at the time why this potential blockbuster wasn’t just sold to a streaming service so we could all watch it in the comfort of our homes as we did the dishes or folded laundry or doomscrolled Twitter or whatever. If you see No Time to Die on the big screen, you’ll have your answer. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga has not just a terrific eye, but also an intuitive knowledge of where to put the camera for maximum impact — whether it’s inside a bulletproof car that’s being strafed by what feels like a hundred gunmen, or a bird’s-eye view of Ana de Armas (playing a novice CIA agent, a brief highlight of the movie) spinning around in a high-slit gown knocking down baddies, or a handheld long-take following Bond up a stairwell as he pummels his way through a small army of henchmen, or simply a soaring aerial shot taking in the dizzying heights of an Italian mountain town. Shot partly on IMAX, No Time to Die is clearly meant to be seen on a massive screen.

Even that feels a little anti-Bond, frankly; despite their huge sets and international locales, these films pre-Craig rarely trafficked in grandeur or immersion. (I think I initially watched most of them on airplanes.) At times, the director seems to be leading us on a journey through the non-Bond action landscape — a Dark Knight sequence here, a Fast & Furious sequence there, a Fury Road sequence there, a Hanna sequence there, to say nothing of the Mission: Impossible style teamwork that we get when the two 007s start working together. (There’s even a Silence of the Lambs moment so ostentatiously — and possibly inadvertently — goofy that the picture briefly starts to feel like it’s one Wayans brothers polish away from becoming an elaborate, albeit overlong and expensive, spoof of all genre flicks.)

With all its connections to the previous film, No Time to Die ’s biggest failing is probably the fact that it seems to think Spectre had a compelling narrative. But that’s sort of par for the course for the Craig Bonds, too. They extract their pound of flesh. To get to the next action sequence, we often have to sit through another interminable speech or exchange with the bad guy about how we’re both really the same, you and me . Craig has neither the ability nor the willingness to dismiss such blather with a raised eyebrow, as, say, Roger Moore could. Craig wants to commit, to emote, to really tackle the substance of the material; he is, after all, a real actor. Except that the material has no substance: It’s still the same tired nonsense, just longer, and all the added elements to give the story and the characters emotional heft mostly fail as a result. That in turn makes the picture’s forays into genuine darkness, particularly near the end, ring rather false. Still, amid the grit and the attempted emotional catharses and the Sturm und Drang, there is an actual Bond movie in there. No Time to Die is fun, but only when it dares to be.

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‘No Time to Die’: What the Critics Are Saying

After a star-studded premiere in London, this much-delayed Bond film is drawing mostly positive early reviews.

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By Stephanie Goodman

The latest James Bond adventure, “No Time to Die,” was supposed to hit theaters in April 2020. The pandemic hit instead, and the film’s release was postponed more than once. But on Tuesday the 25th installment in the franchise had a splashy world premiere in London .

On hand were 007 himself, Daniel Craig ; his co-stars Léa Seydoux (as Madeleine Swann, the love interest), Ana de Armas, Lashana Lynch and Rami Malek; the filmmaker Cary Joji Fukunaga, the first American to direct a Bond film; and Billie Eilish, who wrote the title song. Also in attendance were Prince William with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge; and Prince Charles with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; along with the film’s producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.

Just as important, critics finally got a look at the movie, which will reach multiplexes on Oct. 8. Here is a roundup of what they’re saying:

A Callback to Dr. No: “Craig’s final film as the diva of British intelligence is an epic barnstormer, with the script from Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge delivering pathos, action, drama, camp comedy (Bond will call M ‘darling’ in moments of tetchiness), heartbreak, macabre horror, and outrageously silly old-fashioned action in a movie which calls to mind the world of Dr. No on his island. Director Cary Fukunaga delivers it with terrific panache, and the film also shows us a romantic Bond, an uxorious Bond, a Bond who is unafraid of showing his feelings, like the old softie he’s turned out to be.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Unafraid of Risks: Craig “invests the role with more emotion, power and style in a movie that not only marks a milestone as the 25th time around but also one not afraid to take some twists, turns and, yes, risks in a long-delayed entertainment that sees James Bond not only out to save the world from evil forces again but perhaps, in these Covid times, the theatrical exhibition business itself.” — Pete Hammond, Deadline.com

Too Much Time to Die: “In terms of Bond staples, the movie does deliver some impressive chases and action sequences, with Ana de Armas (Craig’s ‘ Knives Out ’ co-star) adding another dose of female empowerment during a mission that takes Bond to Cuba. Still, ‘ No Time to Die ’ feels as if it’s working too hard to provide Craig a send-off worthy of all the hype associated with it — an excess that might be summed up as simply, finally, by taking too much time to reach the finish.” — Brian Lowry, CNN

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Review: James Bond saves the day in ‘No Time to Die.’ But can he save the future of moviegoing?

A man in a black button-down looks dark and mysterious

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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials .

The James Bond franchise, now in its 27th iteration, is precious in ways you might not have considered until you settle in to pass two hours and 43 minutes of your 2021 with the long-postponed “No Time to Die” and see Daniel Craig do that hokey 90-degree spin as he fires at the camera.

Dum-duddle-um-dum-dum , goes Monty Norman’s classic theme, and perhaps despite yourself, so may your heart, thrumming a silly little bassline that bounces pleasurably between anticipation and familiarity. It’s quite something that franchise newcomer Cary Joji Fukunaga’s “No Time to Die” delivers on both those fronts; when it comes to mixing the thrill of the newfangled with nostalgia for the old-fashioned, nobody — still — does it better.

Fukunaga’s movie, which also serves as Craig’s fifth and final Bond installment, works on those levels because it’s actually about those levels: right down to its DNA — gunshot strands of which are evoked in Daniel Kleinman’s opening title graphics — “No Time to Die” is a twilight movie. Linus Sandgren’s crepuscular photography tends toward the retrospective, honeyed and melancholy: There’s one particularly dazzling shot of Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann — permitting her perma-sulky mouth to twist into the tiniest, saddest of smiles — that simply by the way the evening light trickles through her blond hair, then bursts into sunflare across the screen, delivers a more emotive wallop than words ever could.

And this is despite the springiness of its action, a light dusting of jokes (“Magnets!” says a superscientist at one point, utterly delighted by how freaking cool magnets can be) and an overstuffed plot that feels blissfully irrelevant to the present moment even though it’s about the global threat posed by a virus.

“No Time to Die” is more about aging and creeping obsolescence as about Aston Martins with headlamp-mounted machine guns doing doughnuts on an Italian piazza, though it has those too. It’s about the old guard making way for the new and about the past resurfacing to scare the living daylights out of the present — all of this before a tomorrow, which as we know, never dies. Though in Craig’s brawny, bruiser continuation of the role, it can get pretty badly knocked about.

A beat-up man looks out the window as he drives a car

The past for Craig-era Bond is defined by two things: the death of his “Casino Royale” paramour Vesper Lynd and his own origin story, including his links to currently incarcerated nemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), which were revealed in “Skyfall.” Both of those spectres threaten Bond here: Early on, Madeleine — the rare Bond Girl who has not only survived the transition from one movie to the next but is also aware of Bond Girls previous — asks James to talk about Vesper.

In return, Madeleine promises to reveal her secrets — which we already know involve her childhood encounter with Rami Malek’s rather anodyne villain Lyutsifer Safin, who we mostly understand is the Big Bad this time out because he has a scarred face and the devil’s name. Bond procrastinates on his confession, asserting that they “have all the time in the world” (you’d think he’d be a bit careful bandying around those words, given that they’re the last thing he said to his doomed wife in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” a frequent reference point for the latest film’s music, themes and romance).

Entombed regrets have a tendency to blow up in one’s face, which does happen very literally, the way everything here is literal. For this entirely breakable Bond, it’s possible that all the time in the world is not enough.

Five years and one rendition of the rather lovely Billie Eilish theme song later, Bond is alone, having cut loose from Madeleine while still estranged from MI6, who have reassigned his 007 number to hypercompetent new agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Nomi finds him in Jamaica, where he’s living a designer-tatty-T-shirt existence pulling ginormous fish out of the sea — but Bond has already been found by his CIA buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) and briefed on the existence of a super-targeted bioweapon that’s fallen into the worst possible hands.

Nomi (Lashana Lynch) is ready for action in Cuba in NO TIME TO DIE.

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Reluctant to get embroiled in this particular save-the-world scenario, Bond soon realizes that basically every surviving person he knows is somehow connected, including, perhaps, his erstwhile boss M (Ralph Fiennes, so good at conveying the personal toll that a lifetime of moral relativism can take). So he takes Felix up on his offer and zips over to Cuba, because in a Bond movie many things that an even slightly cheaper film would set in an adjoining room must instead unfold in an exotic sunny locale, or in Norway or Scotland or a trawler in the middle of the sea or a concrete-lined contested island off the coast of Japan.

In Cuba he meets (all too briefly) Ana de Armas’ greenhorn CIA agent, Paloma; in London he’s back with the old MI6 gang — Q (Ben Whishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Tanner (Rory Kinnear). Inevitably, his frosty relationship with nu-007 thaws under the warming lamps of their mutual respect. We’ve seen caring Bond in some form ever since Craig first donned his double-O tight swimwear in “Casino Royale,” but it’s hard to remember him ever having shared quite so much. Limelight, action setpieces, his pain, his heart, his 007 identity — this guy shares them all, making him, amid all this talk of biology and chemistry, perhaps the most covalent Bond we’ve ever seen.

The spread-the-love mentality originates in the screenplay, which is rudimentary in its plotting but nicely democratic in its characterization. You really notice it in a small role like De Armas’, and in bigger parts like Seydoux’s Madeleine, who is far from the most interesting Bond Girl ever, yet whom screenwriters Fukunaga, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and good-value puncher-upper Phoebe Waller-Bridge gratifyingly treat like she is.

But even more credit is due to Craig: We know, after his expressions of disgruntlement regarding “Spectre,” what the franchise has done for and to him. Now that his tenure in the tux has ended, perhaps it’s time to evaluate what Craig has done for the franchise. It’s largely his resilience as an actor that forced Bond to age as he did, and therefore forced a franchise trapped in an endless-reset adolescence to finally acknowledge the passage of time, and the accumulation of regret that James Bond must experience, if he’s a human being at all.

A man in a tux, left, and a woman in a cocktail dress at a bar

Here, as Bond winces at his own dad-joke wisecracks, allows himself to be impressed by the mad skills of other agents and doesn’t even try to see if Ana De Armas’ silken evening dress will shuck soundlessly to the floor at the drop of a double entendre, Craig reveals himself as perhaps the most generous actor to have inhabited the role. And not only toward the rest of the cast, but toward the very idea of Bond itself. Craig sets Bond free from the prison of forgetfulness that has previously trapped him like a caveman in ice, though the price is steep, and it remains to be seen if future installments can continue to pay it.

This is not to suggest that your favorite spy is given too much to emote and too little to do. Even retired, he lives and lets die in often spectacular fashion, delivering a contradictory fusion of cordon bleu action with comfort-food satisfaction that is specific to Bond, even in our age of ubiquitous franchise filmmaking. It’s a lot because of his longevity — next year will be 60 years since the release of “Dr. No” — and the Pavlovian memory encoded in all those familiar Bond-world motifs: the tricked-out cars and gadget watches, all the Ms and Qs and ridiculously monikered bikini-clad ladies we’ve loved and lost. And beyond that, there’s the fond memory of those suburban living room Christmases with uncles and grandfathers sliding gently into tryptophan snoozes while on TV 007 waggles his eyebrows at some rando with such slippery suavity that all her zippers unzip.

This shared history means that Bond can make its billions by granting a few hours of meticulously made escapism (even maybe “oblivion” as Safin darkly hints) to a more broadly intergenerational casual fanbase than many other film series can boast. These audience members, who are fond of the mythos but actually have other things in their lives, make it a true four-quadrant property, perhaps the only one left that isn’t led by the nose by fan service and unwieldy shared universes.

Every new Bond movie is a referendum. Not just on the ongoing viability of a franchise that has been part of the cinematic landscape for six decades — fading in and out of relevance, moving through cycles of creakiness, campiness and classiness — but also on the vitality of old-model popular cinema, which is threatened now as never before. If the release of “No Time to Die” marks a widespread return to the cinema, it will be nicely fitting that it’s Bond, a gentleman franchise in a world of whippersnappers, holding the door open on the way in. And then reminding us, on the way out, that every farewell is also a hello, and every time to die is a time to be reborn.

B25_25594_R James Bond (Daniel Craig) prepares to shoot in NO TIME TO DIE

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'No Time to Die'

Rating: PG-13, for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive material Running time: 2 hours, 43 minutes Playing: Opens Oct. 8 in general release

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No Time to Die Ending Explained: Is This the Last Bond Movie?

We break down what happened to james bond at the end of daniel craig's final 007 film..

filmWarning: Full spoilers follow for No Time to Die. If you just want to know how many end credits scenes there are in No Time to Die, we’ll tell you right here: There aren't any, but there is a brief title card in the final moments of the flim.

Read on if you want all the details.

Daniel Craig’s James Bond literally goes out with a bang in No Time to Die, the 25th Bond movie and the fifth and final one starring Craig .

And while the finality of Craig’s Bond is not in question, some of the hows and whys of No Time to Die may have left some scratching their heads. After all, there were a lot of plot machinations for viewers to keep straight and pseudo-science being tossed around throughout the film.

So let’s break down how and why James Bond met his fate in No Time to Die.

No Time to Die Plot and Ending Explained

Much of the final act of No Time to Die is spent on Bond and his fellow 00 Agent Nomi’s (Lashana Lynch) infiltration of the headquarters of villainous Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek). Located on an island in disputed waters between Russia and Japan, Safin’s lair is a former missile silo and submarine docking base (that boasts some old school, large-scale, Ken Adam-style production design). Bond and Nomi have three objectives: rescue Bond’s flame Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) and their little daughter, Mathilde (Lisa-Dorah Sonne); destroy Project Heracles; and kill Safin.

After a series of brutal firefights and encounters, Bond rescues Madeleine and Mathilde, Nomi executes turncoat scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), and Safin seemingly flees his lair as the British navy prepares to risk an international incident just to destroy the island and Heracles. But in order for the missile strike to be effective, the base’s blast doors must be opened and that means someone has to get to the control room to open them.

Bond initially succeeds in doing that until they get word that the doors are somehow closing again. That means someone has to go back up there to get them open. Bond asks Nomi to get Madeleine and Mathilde out of there by boat while he deals with the blast doors, promising them all he’ll escape in time. But as Bond rushes through the Garden of Death to reach the blast doors, he’s shot multiple times by Safin, who did not flee the island after all ...

No Time To Die Gallery

Does James Bond Die in the New Movie?

As we saw in the sequence where Heracles was used to kill SPECTRE members but spare everyone else, Safin’s able to engineer the Heracles nanobots to kill people that share specific DNA. MI6 witnessed family members who made contact with deceased SPECTRE operatives who then died themselves because Heracles was targeted to kill those sharing specific DNA. And the nanobots, as Q (Ben Whishaw) makes clear, are permanent and can’t be removed from one’s system.

Safin got a sample of Madeline’s DNA from a strand of her hair while he held her and Mathilde hostage. During their brawl, Safin scratched Bond, infecting him with nanobots genetically encoded to Madeleine, and therefore also to her child’s DNA. This means Bond, the biogenetic weapon’s carrier, would cause their deaths if he ever returned to them. Possibly already mortally wounded by Safin’s gunfire, Bond kills Safin and hauls himself back up to the control room to reopen the blast doors shielding the lair.

Bond’s imminent self-sacrifice becomes clear to Q, who is in a plane flying nearby, as well as to M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Tanner (Rory Kinnear) tracking the events from back at MI6 headquarters in London. Having reopened the blast doors so that the British navy’s missile strike can succeed, Bond calls Madeleine to say goodbye. She, Nomi and Mathilde had made it to shore and can see the island from their position.

Bond thanks Madeleine for the gift she’s given him with their daughter and tells her he loves her. As the missiles rain down on the island, Bond stares out at the sun over the ocean as he is obliterated in the explosion. Madeline sobs as the island is destroyed in the missile strike and Nomi realizes Bond is dead.

Later, back at M’s office, Bond’s work-family — M, Moneypenny, Q, Nomi, and Tanner — raise a toast to him, with a glass of whisky set aside for Bond in his honor. M reads a passage from author Jack London : “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

The film’s final scene shows Madeline and Matilde driving along the Italian coast, a similar view from the movie’s opening moments, five years earlier, where she and Bond were on a romantic getaway. Madeline tells Matilde a story about a man. “His name was Bond. James Bond …”

The Next James Bonds Who Never Played 007

No Time to Die Post Credits Scene: Is This the Last Bond Movie?

Yes, there will be another James Bond, although the producers say the search for the next Bond won’t begin until 2022 . Given the amount of closure in this film, it seems the franchise will be rebooted again and with a whole new cast. But despite the finality of No Time to Die, the last words on-screen are the same last four words that have graced many past 007 films: “James Bond will return.”

That's as close as we get to an end credits scene in No Time to Die. But in a way, it's enough, isn't it? There are big questions surrounding the Bond franchise after this film, and those four words pretty much say it all. Will they reboot again? Could they somehow continue on with this cast of characters and no Daniel Craig, perhaps with Agent Nomi taking back the 007 mantle? Sure, it seems unlikely... but we'll certainly be guessing for some time to come about just where the James Bond series will go next!

Did James Bond’s death scene leave you shaken or stirred? What did you think of No Time to Die overall? Let us know in the comments. And for more on James Bond, check out our No Time to Die review and look back at the “ next James Bond actors ” that never actually got the role.

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Review: “No Time to Die” Leaves Daniel Craig’s James Bond Legacy Unfulfilled

By Richard Brody

Image may contain Clothing Apparel Human Person Suit Coat Overcoat Daniel Craig Audience Crowd and Tuxedo

For those whose cinematic consciousness predates “Star Wars,” the James Bond series may be the primordial experience of franchise films, with all the pleasures and limitations that they entail. The appealing predictability of familiar characters and the excitement of seeing variations on their themes has always gone hand in hand with a sense of overmanagement—of the strings being pulled by some puppeteer far from the set. The feeling that what’s onscreen is inseparable from the demands of the balance sheet has never been absent from the Bond market, and the five entries starring Daniel Craig have only intensified it. Together, the Craig films interconnect to form a sort of Bond cinematic universe whose parts slot all too neatly into a series, with all the dramatic engineering that it implies. The most recent and final Craig film, “No Time to Die,” directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, is in that sense a culmination of the series’ necessities, with the boardroom and the writers’ room virtually taking the place of any cinematic action.

On the other hand, the series’ essential virtue was always its extravagant exaggerations—it was gloriously ridiculous and gloriously lacking in self-awareness, its macho ribaldry invested with absurdly high purpose. In the Daniel Craig era, there’s no sense of unconscious or excess expression—it has been digitized out along with any intentional humor. The devices that Bond and his compatriots use are hardly a step from Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone, as are the switch-operated gizmos of his Aston Martin. Yet their depiction and use are so perfunctory that they’re presented as neither silly nor ordinary, just checked off. Craig is a great actor who brings a distinctive affect to Bond—clenched, airtight, impenetrable, abraded. He makes Bond’s social graces seem like the product of work that’s harder than the athleticized superhero business imposed upon the character. Craig’s distinctive persona suggests pathos that the series doesn’t allow; instead, he’s merely used as a Bond-piñata, a straining for an element of realism amid stunts that, in their grandiosity and their excess, preclude it. In “No Time to Die,” Bond is launched with mourning and melancholy: he and his new partner, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), visit the Italian town of Matera, where the tomb of Vesper Lynd (from “Casino Royale”) is found. Bond visits her tomb—which explodes, as a prelude to a mighty chase and shoot-out. He survives but immediately ends the romance with Madeleine, whom he suspects of setting him up.

Five years later, Bond, retired to Jamaica, gets a visit from an old associate, Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), of the C.I.A., along with a smarmy young State Department official named Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen). They want Bond’s help in finding a scientist named Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), who has been kidnapped from a high-security bioweapon facility with a dreadful concoction in hand: a mortal virus-like nanobot, transmitted on contact and engineered to target specific DNA markers, whether of an individual, a family, or an ethnicity. But it takes a visit, that very night, from another M.I.6 operative, Nomi (Lashana Lynch)—who now bears Bond’s former number, 007—to persuade Bond of the urgency of the mission, and he joins in. It seems that Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), Bond’s longtime nemesis (dating back to childhood, as we now know), and Blofeld’s dastardly organization Spectre, is behind the kidnapping. But, infiltrating a Spectre gathering in Cuba, Bond and Nomi note the involvement of another evil mastermind, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), and the mission now involves targeting him along with Obruchev.

Yet “No Time to Die” offers a new piece of the puzzle, a bit of backstory that’s of obvious and major significance (shh) and that, by its very nature, suggests what’s both right and wrong with the franchise reboot in the Craig era. In the film’s opening, pre-title sequence, Madeleine is a child of about five (played by Lisa-Dorah Sonnet), staying with her mother (Mathilde Bourbin) in an isolated house in a snowy field and yearning for the return of her father (Mr. White, introduced in “Casino Royale”). She thinks he’s a doctor; her mother reveals that he’s a killer. Moments later, a masked gunman—Safin—shows up and breaks in. When Safin was a child, he explains, Mr. White killed his entire family, leaving only Safin to survive. Now, seeking revenge, he kills Madeleine’s mother, and prepares to kill the fleeing Madeleine, yet—in a moment of pity that may also carry an element of self-recognition—lets her go. (The moment, like so many others in the film, is merely conveyed in an informative wink rather than actually unfurled at any length.) Along with imparting the trauma and grief that Madeleine bears, the sequence insures that, later in the film, when Safin intrudes into Bond’s affairs, Madeleine can’t be far behind.

This setup implies a broader question about the role and use of backstory in recent movies. In principle, the prevalence of backstory advances an overdue democratization of the cinema: it eliminates the notion of typecasting and recognizes that each individual’s background and experience are distinctive and significant. Yet, like any dramatic method, the planting of backstory can take a decadent form, as it does in “No Time to Die,” where backstory is used to reduce the characters’ motives to single factors. With the setting up of one past experience, the movie bypasses any consideration of Madeleine (let alone Safin) as a character and turns her into a dramatic mechanism—rendering her not more of an individual but less of one. Fascinatingly and dismayingly, backstories are applied only very selectively and deterministically in “No Time to Die.” The movie brings several important new characters into the franchise, starting with Nomi, the new 007, who is a Black woman, and including Paloma (Ana de Armas), a C.I.A. agent who guides Bond into the Spectre meeting in Cuba. (The closest thing to humor that the movie offers is in the contrast between Paloma’s sunny ingenuousness and her mighty skills.) What motives prompted this admirably diverse cast of characters to serve their country in dangerous missions? What range of experience contributed to their ability to do so? The film never says. The diversity here is purely pictorial.

The formulaic drama is of a piece with the movie’s action sequences, which exhaust their ingenuity from the get-go, with the Matera chase and shoot-out. The single best moment is the very first, when, on a narrow bridge, Bond dodges a speeding car with a deft dive behind a convenient lump of concrete. The action soon grows wilder—a leap while holding a cable and a rough landing, a motorcycle jaunt up staircases and over a wall—and briefly offers a moment of tension, with Bond and Madeleine together in the Aston Martin while facing a barrage of bullets that the car’s windows barely withstand. (Bond’s stoic stillness in the face of Madeleine’s panic is also Craig’s best moment.) But, despite these (very brief) clever touches, the filming does this and other set pieces scant justice. Little attention is given to staging and placing, to ensembles and their timing, to the practicalities of massive stunts, whether chase scenes or shoot-outs or trouble on the high seas. What matters isn’t spatial coherence—which is only a virtue in real estate—but coherence of ideas, of emotions, of images. The shots, whether brief and collaged together or closely following Bond in motion, do little but convey the general concept or the basic facts, the input and the outcome. The rapid cutting and rapid camera movement don’t make the action hard to understand; they make it hard to enjoy. For all the agony that the story’s violence suggests, and the sense of rueful wonder, of horrified fascination, that it depends on, the filming gives no sense of experience either onscreen or behind it—merely a sense of dutiful, approximative technique.

“No Time to Die” wants it both ways: it makes watching violent shoot-outs and colossal catastrophes pleasurable while depicting them merely functionally, a coy fusion of the sumptuous and the abstemious. Similarly, the story is built upon an emotional foundation of melancholy and regret, of the sins of the fathers and the pain of their redemption. But these aspects of the drama get neither discussed nor developed, merely signified in the sweep of the action. Moreover, the story is almost completely depoliticized; the only hint of a viewpoint is when Ash is derisively pinpointed as a “political appointee.” All that remains, besides the vapors of nostalgia, are the broad contours of the drama, which are less matters of character or history than of positioning in the movie marketplace. Daniel Craig’s tenure as Bond is defined, ultimately, by the melancholy of unimagined possibilities and missed opportunities—for the actor and the character alike.

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'No Time to Die'

In an era when too many franchises discard (or threaten to discard) the less-successful sequels, I do admire that No Time to Die is absolutely, come hell or high water, a sequel to Spectre . To be fair, while critics (including myself) carped, the previous James Bond film grossed $200 million domestic and $881 million worldwide in late 2015, second only to Skyfall for the franchise. I might surmise casual moviegoers seemed to enjoy it just fine. When No Time to Die is trying to be “just the next James Bond movie” for its first hour, it’s quite good. But when it reverts course in acts two and three and tries to be an explicit sequel to Spectre , well, it’s hard to make a tasty omelet from rotten eggs. Moreover, it undercuts the franchise’s appeal as escapist entertainment.

Yes, it’s a better 007 film than Spectre , and yes, it’s a better series finale (relatively speaking) than The Rise of Skywalker . However, I might also argue the two years of release-date delays may have helped the film. In October 2021, critics and audiences may be so thirsty for water that they’ll drink the sand. I don’t entirely blame them/us. Had this film opened in late 2019 or early 2020, it would have paled in comparison to other series finales and other “take stock in our legacy” sequels that opened around that time. Today, the gorgeous “partially shot in and entirely formatted for IMAX” blockbuster is a reminder of what we arguably used to take for granted. The Cary Fukunaga-directed actioner looks spectacular, with gorgeous movie stars doing movie star things in lovely locales.

The 163-minute flick starts with essentially a triple-whammy pre-credits sequence. After a cryptic prologue, we come upon a retired James Bond (Daniel Craig) running for his life and presuming that Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) set him up and is still working for S.P.E.C.T.R.E. The action is strong, but more impressive is the notion of Bond taken by surprise, unsure of his course of action and terrified for his life. Five years later, Bond has ditched Madeline and is living on his own when Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) tracks him down and asks for his help with finding a kidnapped scientist. He reluctantly agrees only to end up working for the CIA and thus sportingly sparring with MI6 in the form of agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch) who took over the 007 designation after Bond chose love over duty.

This stuff is all darn fun, including a goofy romp with Ana de Armas playing Paloma, a cheerfully novice field agent who reveals zero compulsion about killing bad guys. It’s an enjoyable riff on the “strong female character” cliché, while Billy Magnussen plays Leiter’s cohort, a gee-whiz “political appointee” who ironically represents “white guys of privilege failing upward.” Where the plot goes from there, I will not say. However, eventually (and almost tangentially), we meet up with the disfigured and “movie bad-guy creepy” Safron (Rami Malek). Malek has so little to say or do that you might actually be relieved when Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld returns in the Hannibal Lecter role. As someone who likes Rami’s off-kilter sensibilities, I must sadly report that this underwritten and almost incidental role feels entirely left on the cutting room floor.

The big evil plot eventually reveals itself, and I enjoyed Ralph Fiennes’s M being tormented by a seemingly valid peacekeeping tool being used to diabolical ends. But the plan is never really spelled out beyond “lotta people gonna die,” which means the metaphorical doomsday clock carries little weight. The film offers no contextual insight into even the pre-Covid political landscape. I didn’t necessarily expect James Bond to go after a corrupt American government leader aligning himself with diabolical overseas tyrants, but this film acts as if the world hasn’t changed since Skyfall . Instead, we get bogged down with micro-drama concerning Bond’s doomed romance with Dr. Swann. That proves to be a fatal problem since his arbitrary courtship with Madeleine in Spectre was so unconvincing it made me question my adoration of Casino Royale .

That Daniel Craig looks old enough to be Seydoux’s father is even more of a problem here than it was in Spectre . That Malek is presented as seemingly being older than he looks doesn’t help, although Ben Whishaw’s Q.(I.L.F.) being officially denoted as gay prevents audiences from shipping Madeleine with the age-appropriate tech genius. The film’s final third both wanders aimlessly into endless arbitrary run-and-shoot action while trying to make Bond into something he isn’t and frankly never needed to be. No, that’s not to say he’s magically progressive, although Bond as presented was never more than politely amused at changing norms. If anything, the film overcompensates to assure fans that James Bond is the “real 007.” However, the plot and character beats seem once-again determined to place the franchise in a worldbuilding mythology franchise sandbox.

All of this would be less of an issue if the action and spectacle were of a sharper breed. Alas, save for the pre-credit sequence and the fun first-act romp in Cuba (everyone is going to claim to want a Paloma spin-off), this feels closer in spirit to Spectre than Skyfall or even the rough-and-tumble Quantum of Solace set pieces. All is not lost, as Craig is again relishing the chance to give the kind of full-bodied “acting performance” that Pierce Brosnan only got to hint at. I still wish his platonic friendship with Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny got more room to breathe. While not every franchise has to evolve into a story about surrogate families, there is lost potential in terms of Q, Moneypenny and even M having more than just a professional relationship to their proverbial star quarterback.

As the fifth and final entry of the Craig era, there is more suspense and tension than usual in terms of characters being in harm’s way. Moreover, as just one 007 movie amid 25 previous films, with the presumption that more will still follow with a new actor (with the first new film ideally helmed by Martin Campbell), No Time to Die is a disappointment but not a soul-killing whiff akin to Spectre . I was hoping No Time to Die would give Daniel Craig a noble swan song, but it’ll have to settle for merely being better than Diamonds Are Forever, A View to A Kill and Die Another Day . Here’s hoping it represents an end to 26 years of “Is Bond still relevant?” navel gazing. The answer has been “Yes!” since GoldenEye .

The James Bond series has thrived for decades, both when it was the only game in town and when it was but one big action blockbuster franchise, partially by not trying to be something it wasn’t. It doesn’t have to apologize for changing social mores, merely try to adapt to them, and it doesn’t have to be the next MCU or the next Fast Saga . I was optimistic after Spectre precisely because the franchise has the luxury of a clean slate every time out. Ironically, No Time to Die stumbles hardest by not taking advantage of that freedom and instead trying to make lemonade out of lemons. I admire the effort, even if it doesn’t work. James Bond *will* be back, and it just needs to have a little faith and confidence in its continued relevance.

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

The 5 best James Bond films ever – including a record-breaking blockbuster

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A compilation image of Sean Connery and Daniel Craig as James Bond

The James Bond franchise is one of the most iconic in cinema history, with 27 beloved films spanning more than six decades.

Based on the novels about fictional British agent 007, created by Sir Ian Fleming, the films have given us nail-biting action sequences , Bond girls to fall in love with, futuristic gadgets, and some of the most cutting one-liners you could imagine.

Several stars have taken the role of the martini-drinking secret agent over the years, from the first man to officially don the legendary tux, Sean Connery , to the most recent stint from Daniel Craig .

The search is officially on for the next Bond, with everyone from Idris Elba , Taron Egerton , Regé-Jean Page , and Aaron Taylor-Johnson rumoured for the legendary role.

Everyone has their opinion on the best – and worst – of the Bond franchise, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes giving us a definitive ranking of every film based on critics’ reviews.

Here are the top five Bond films of all time – from a modern classic to a record-breaking instalment in the famed franchise.

5. Skyfall (2012)

Daniel Craig’s third outing as 007 in Skyfall is among the most revered of the franchise.

The 23rd James Bond film was directed by Sam Mendes and featured Javier Bardem as the sinister villain Raoul Silva, with Dame Judi Dench returning to the role of M.

In it, Bond is tasked with investigating a series of data leaks and attacks on MI6 led by Silva, an assignment that goes terribly wrong with the identities of hundreds of agents in the field being revealed.

The film was a huge hit, grossing a whopping $1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Bond film of all time and the seventh highest-grossing film of all time . It was nominated for five awards at the 85th Academy Awards as well as several other accolades.

It holds a mighty impressive 92% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus reading: ‘Sam Mendes brings Bond surging back with a smart, sexy, riveting action thriller that qualifies as one of the best 007 films to date.’

4. Casino Royale (2006)

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale

Pipping Skyfall to the post by just 2% is Craig’s introduction to the role of Bond – Casino Royale .

Released in 2006, the film follows the secret agent after receiving his license to kill as he travels to Madagascar, uncovering a link to Le Chiffre ( Mads Mikkelsen ), a man who finances terrorist organisations.

The stacked ensemble cast features Eva Green , Judi Dench , and Jeffrey White. It was produced by Eon Productions who decided to reboot the franchise following 2002’s Die Another Day, ushering in a more inexperienced and multi-faceted Bond.

And it’s a decision that paid off in droves, with Casino Royale grossing $616 million worldwide making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2006.

Rotten Tomatoes lauds it a ‘a caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007’ that ‘disposes of the silliness and gadgetry’ of previous films, earning it a score of 94%.

3. Dr No (1962)

Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench and Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr. No

As we enter Rotten Tomatoes’ top three, we take a trip back to the swinging sixties and the first Eon Bond film that gave us the blueprint for the films that followed.

Dr. No follows Sean Connery’s iconic Bond as he travels to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent, crossing the path of the scheming Dr. Julius (Joseph Wiseman) who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch.

The hit film introduced many of the franchise’s familiar tropes, including the highly stylised title sequence, theme music, and introduction of the character through the view of a gun barrel.

It received a mixed reception at the time of its release but grossed $6 million worldwide and President John F. Kennedy even requested a private showing of Dr. No in the White House.

Dr. No holds a stellar 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics saying it features ‘plenty of the humour, action, and escapist thrills.’ What more could you want?

2. From Russia With Love (1963)

Sean Connery as James Bond and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny in From Russia With Love

Missing out on the top spot by 2%, From Russia With Love was greenlit following the success of Dr. No and improved on the formula it introduced.

Following Dr. Julius’ death, Bond (Connery) is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), but his mission is thrown into disarray by SPECTRE’s plans to avenge the doctor.

From Russia With Love was a bigger success than anyone could have imagined, taking home more than $78 million after being made on just a $2 million budget.

The blockbuster went on to win a BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography and often features on lists of the greatest Bond films of all time (including this one) as well as best film round-ups.

And Rotten Tomatoes critics agree, with it standing at 97% on the review aggregator with the consensus dubbing it a ‘razor-sharp, briskly-paced Cold War thriller.’

1. 007: Goldfinger (1964)

Sean Connery as James Bond and Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson in Goldfinger

No James Bond film is packed full of as many iconic moments as Goldfinger – from Bond himself facing death via laser beam, to Shirley Eaton as his gold-painted love interest and the famed ejector seat.

The film sees business tycoon Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) set in motion Operation Grand Slam in a bit to raid Fort Knox and destroy the world’s economy. Of course, Bond (Connery) is tasked to stop him – and several other adversaries along the way.

With Dame Shirley Bassey’s iconic theme, a budget bigger than the previous two films combined, extensive use of technology and gadgets, and exotic filming locations, Goldfinger is really where the Bond franchise hits its stride.

It was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award and grossed over $120 million worldwide, cementing its status as a classic film even before it graced multiple publication’s top 100 lists.

Goldfinger boasts a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score with a cool 99% rating, making it the site’s number one Bond film of all 27 releases so far.

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The Newest Movie Reviews to Get You Through This Stacked Weekend

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It’s now the end of what has been quite a long week and you know what that means: lots of new movies to watch. We’ve not only covered them all, but we’ve assembled our reviews of each for you to read. Whether you want to learn about the new big release in theaters starring Russell Crowe or dive into the new sci-fi movie starring Léa Seydoux on VOD, we’ve got you covered.

In Theaters

'fancy dance' (2024), directed by erica tremblay.

Isabel Deroy-Olsen and Lily Gladstone, crossing their arms, as Roki and Jax in Fancy Dance Apple TV+

Kicking things off is Erica Tremblay ’s fantastic Fancy Dance , the latest film to star the great Lily Gladstone after she blew us all away with her incredible work in Killers of the Flower Moon from last year. Her latest is a modern classic in the making, seeing her play the hustler with a heart of gold Jax as she tries to find her missing sister and look after her young niece. In my rave review back from when it played at Sundance in 2023 , I called it “one of the best of the year” and that absolutely remains true for 2024. Specifically, it’s a film that deserves just as much attention as her past work as Gladstone again proves she is a performer like no other.

Fancy Dance

Fancy Dance boasts not only another magnificent performance from Lily Gladstone, but every other aspect of it becomes a beautiful work of art.

The film takes a familiar story and makes it into something that is bursting with life.
Gladstone is able to do more without saying much at all than most actors could with pages and pages of dialogue.
The conclusion is shattering yet sublime, proving to be one of those moments that can linger forever in our memories.

READ OUR REVIEW

'Janet Planet' (2024)

Directed by: annie baker.

Julianne Nicholson as Janet and Zoe Ziegler as Lacy sitting together while watching a play in a still from Janet Planet.

Keeping up with films that made a buzz in festivals though are now rolling out into theaters, the joyous Janet Planet is also finally able to be seen by the world. Starring Julianne Nicholson in one of her very best performances to date in a career never lacking for them, my review I wrote earlier this year called it “a film of small moments and how they can accumulate into something that feels like it may last a lifetime.” It will change you just as it does its characters.

Janet Planet (2024)

Janet Planet is spectacular feature debut from writer-director Annie Baker with great performances by Zoe Ziegler and Julianne Nicholson that's one of the best films of 2024 so far.

The film finds an understated beauty in its small corner of the world, delicately exploring the relationship between a mother and daughter.
Janet Planet explores life's most pressing questions about how we can become set down certain paths and whether we can find a way free of them.
Julianne Nicholson inhabits this world so naturally, it feels like you're just peeking in on Janet's life.
The film ends with a fitting coda, cementing it as an evocative and essential work.

'Kinds of Kindness' (2024)

Directed by: yorgos lanthimos.

Kinds-of-Kindness-jesse-plemons-emma-stone

Good news for fans of Yorgos Lanthimos as his new movie, Kinds of Kindness , is a return to him being his unrestrained weird self. Starring Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as well as many others, it’s a film of three different yet interconnected stories where everyone is anything but kind. In my review from when it premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival , I said that it was a “return to form” for the director and “while he was far from dead like the corpses in this film, Kinds of Kindness feels like Lanthimos is himself coming back to life once more.”

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

Kinds of Kindness is a return to form for Yorgos Lanthimos, bring his distinctly dark humor and boasting a standout performance by Jesse Plemons.

After some more straightforward successes, Kinds of Kindness proves that Lanthimos still has plenty of weird films left in the tank.
All of the cast get their moment to excel, but it's Jesse Plemons who proves to be the best of the bunch.
With a strong opener and closer, Lanthimos again dissects our toxic relationships with plenty of flair to spare.
The middle section is a little more confined and the overall film doesn't have the room to build tension like Lanthimos has in the past.

'Thelma' (2024)

Directed by: josh margolin.

thelma-june-squibb-fred-hechinger-sundance copy

Move over Tom Cruise , there is a new action star in town and her name is June Squibb . In writer-director Josh Margolin ’s Thelma , she’s on a mission to get her money back after it is stolen by some no-good scammers. In his review from back at this year’s Sundance , Senior Film Editor Ross Bonaime said that this is “the definition of a light comedy, but Squibb and Margolin’s handling of this pseudo-spy parody makes it a delight.”

Thelma Sundance Film Festival 2024 Sample Image

Thelma (2024)

Thelma, from writer-director Josh Margolin, gives June Squibb her first lead role in an action-comedy that showcases her strengths.

June Squibb is delightful as the title character, trying to get revenge on elderly scammers.
Josh Margolin's script is a smart parody that never insults its older characters.
The supporting cast never quite manages to feel as fleshed out as the characters played by Squibb and Richard Roundtree.

'The Exorcism' (2024)

Directed by: joshua john miller.

A bloody Russell Crowe in a priest's outfit looking up at the camera with determination.

Continuing on we have Crowe taking on yet another movie of demons with The Exorcism , a movie about a movie where he plays a man tasked with playing a priest in a production where he begins to become actually possessed. Does this meta-horror take have the potential to be a new Scream ? Not according to our reviewer and Horror Editor Emma Kiely. She called the film “a dense, dark, and heavy horror drama” that starts out well enough to abandon “everything it's been setting up to give way to formulaic and stale scare sequences.”

The Exorcism (2024)

The Exorcism has an interesting idea at its core but ultimately falls victim to its self-seriousness and empty scares.

The meta quality of its concept makes for some fun jabs at the horror genre.
The Exorcism abandons all the interesting ideas it sets up in the first act to give way to drab scare sequences.
Russell Crowe gives a much less enlightened performance than his last horror venture.

'The Bikeriders' (2024)

Directed by: jeff nichols.

Jodie Comer in a pink cardigan sits on a porch looking serenely into the distance resting her head on hand

Okay, so if the big theatrical horror release of the week left us cold, maybe the historical biker drama The Bikeriders will get our motor running? Unfortunately, while this film has a stacked cast in Jodie Comer , Austin Butler , Mike Faist , Tom Hardy , and more, this again left our Kiely less than compelled . In her review from back at the London Film Festival, she wrote that the film “seems shiny on the surface” though doesn’t deliver on any of its promising elements, falling flat “in its excessive filler, undeveloped characters, and symphony of bonkers accents.”

The Bikeriders

The Bikeriders leans too heavily on its talented ensemble and asks its audience to invest in a half-baked story.

Jodie Comer gives a committed and passionate performance, making her a stand-out in the cast.
The marriage between Kathy and Benny is at the center of the story but their relationship isn't developed enough to feel authentic.
The main characters of The Bikeriders aren't fully formed, making it hard to connect to them.

'Animalia' (2024)

Directed by: sofia alaoui.

Oumaima Barid as Itto looking at the camera while a face fades in behind her in Animalia.

If you consider yourself a fan of recent sci-fi series like Constellation and Invasion or just an appreciator of well-told stories in the genre writ large, you’re going to want to see Animalia . A film that takes a unique take on what seems to be a visit by some forces that are not of this Earth, it centers on a woman who has been disconnected from her family and must make her way back to them as the world is coming apart. In my review from back at Sundance , I praised the film’s “willingness to peer directly through the looking glass that most other science fiction works would blink in the face” as this is where it “taps into something that remains as spectacular as it is elusive."

Animalia is a surreal, striking sci-fi vision that proves writer-director Sofia Alaoui is one to watch.

Oumaïma Barid gives a dynamic performance, grounding the sweeping sci-fi story in the personal.
There are plenty of standout visual sequences that grab hold of you even as they offer no explicit explanation.
As the film peers through the looking glass, it taps into something that remains as spectacular as it is elusive.

'I Saw the TV Glow' (2024)

Directed by: jane schoenbrun.

A worried Justice Smith (left) looks at a stunned Brigette Lundy-Paine (right) in I Saw the TV Glow.

Trust us when we say that I Saw the TV Glow is an A24 horror film that you’ll be talking about all year. The second feature from director Jane Schoenbrun , it’s about a television show called The Pink Opaque that soon becomes a subject of obsession for two young teens. When it’s canceled, they’ll have to figure out what to do with their lives and who each of them are. In his review from Sundance , Bonaime said that it is “a daring step forward for Schoenbrun as a filmmaker and a film that will certainly divide audiences not sure what the hell to make of it.”

I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow is a fascinating sophomore feature by Jane Schoenbrun. It's a weird and beautiful experience that has to be seen to be believed.

Jane Schoenbrun tells an effective story that blends horror, nostalgia, and larger themes of transition.
I Saw the TV Glow has a truly strange cast that somehow works well when put together.
Schoenbrun creates a film that deserves discussion, as it will certainly mean something different to everyone who sees it.

'The Beast' (2024)

Directed by: bertrand bonello.

Léa Seydoux standing in front of flames in The Beast.

Last but definitely not least is The Beast , a film whose title could not be more fitting. A monumental and menacing work of sci-fi, it follows two lovers whose lives are connected across multiple timelines that are all seem to be coming apart before them. In my review from back at the Toronto International Film Festival , I called it one of “the most formidable films you'll be lucky enough to see in a lifetime” whose “final echoes you hear may just continue to ring out.”

The Beast (2024)

The Beast is a monumental and menacing sci-fi film with an astounding performance by Léa Seydoux that you won't soon forget.

Writer-director Bertrand Bonello has made what is his best film yet, making everything come viscerally alive.
Léa Seydoux is brilliant once more, ensuring we feel every moment even as the film itself is quite unwieldy.
The ending providing a spectacular and striking conclusion that is certain to be among the most formidable you see for some time.
Movie Reviews

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No Time to Die movie review & film summary (2021)
No Time to Die. After months of delays, the 25 th official James Bond film is finally here in "No Time to Die," an epic (163 minutes!) action film that presents 007 with one of his toughest missions: End the era that most people agree gave new life to one of the most iconic film characters of all time. Everyone knows that this is Daniel ...
No Time to Die (2021)
Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 04/01/22 Full Review Carrie L The movie was great up until the end. Rated 3.5/5 Stars • Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 04/01/22 Full Review Read all reviews
No Time to Die (2021)
No Time to Die: Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. With Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch. James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.
No Time to Die
Full Review | Sep 8, 2022. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, "No Time to Die" comes packaged with everything you want from a Bond movie - big action, even bigger characters, plenty of style ...
'No Time to Die': Film Review
James Bond gets lured out of retirement by MI6 when a new threat to the world surfaces in Daniel Craig's final 007 action thriller. 'No Time to Die': Film Review
No Time to Die First Reviews: A Spectacularly Fitting Sendoff for
It's been six years since the release of the last James Bond movie, Spectre, which received the lowest Tomatometer score of Daniel Craig's run of the franchise. That means anticipation is very high and very demanding for the 25th installment, No Time to Die.Fortunately, reviews of the 007 sequel, which is also Craig's last, claim it more than delivers.
No Time to Die reviews: What critics think of Daniel Craig's last Bond film
The 25th Bond film isn't perfect, but explosive stunt sequences and a magnetic performance from Daniel Craig are enough to overcome an overly complicated and overly long plot, critics say.
'No Time to Die' Review: Craig's 007 Gets the Send-off He Deserves
I thought "Casino Royale," the first film in which Daniel Craig portrayed 007, was the greatest Bond film since the early Sean Connery days, and in many ways the most perfectly realized Bond ...
No Time to Die Review: The Most Emotional James Bond Movie Ever
Even after 007's new wife was assassinated in the closing moments of one film, he was literally a different person by the time the next began. But the Craig-starring saga has played by its own ...
'No Time to Die' review: The best Bond ever gets an emotional ...
As No Time to Die opens, 007 is monogamous, in love, and more human than seemingly possible. Exploring this new emotional territory gives the film a fresh charge, even before it sets about ...
"No Time to Die," Reviewed
Anthony Lane reviews Cary Joji Fukunaga's "No Time to Die," the latest installment of the James Bond franchise, starring Daniel Craig, in his final appearance as Bond, and also Rami Malek ...
'No Time To Die' Review: As James Bond, Daniel Craig outshines the film
New 007 Release Delayed For 3rd Time As Pandemic Continues To Batter Film Industry Five years later, Bond is bumming around Jamaica when a fresh criminal conspiracy convinces him to end his ...
No Time to Die review
★★★★★For a while there it seemed deliberate. A piece of marketing hype. The new Bond movie, fleeing from cinema release dates, before the global Covid wave, from February 2020 to April ...
No Time to Die Review: Daniel Craig Carries One of a Kind James Bond
Daniel Craig's last outing as James Bond in No Time to Die is brilliant in every sense of the word. And then there's the rest of the movie. Let there be no doubt about it: in his final outing ...
Film Review: No Time to Die, with Daniel Craig as James Bond
Movie Review: In his last outing as 007 James Bond, Daniel Craig tries hard to bring gravitas to what really should be a fun Bond flick. The film looks great, however. Co-starring Rami Malek, Lea ...
'No Time to Die' Review: His Word Is His Bond
255. The director Cary Joji Fukunaga narrates an action sequence from his film featuring Daniel Craig. Nicola Dove/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. By A.O. Scott. Published Sept. 29, 2021 Updated Oct ...
'No Time to Die': What the Critics Are Saying
The latest James Bond adventure, "No Time to Die," was supposed to hit theaters in April 2020. The pandemic hit instead, and the film's release was postponed more than once. But on Tuesday ...
'No Time to Die' review: Can James Bond save movie theaters?
Review: James Bond saves the day in 'No Time to Die.' ... doomed wife in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," a frequent reference point for the latest film's music, themes and romance ...
No Time to Die Ending Explained: Is This the Last Bond Movie?
SPOILERS! We break down the how and why of James Bond's fate in No Time to Die, Daniel Craig's fifth and final turn as 007, as well as whether or not there's a post credits scene and more.
Review: "No Time to Die" Leaves Daniel Craig's ...
The movie brings several important new characters into the franchise, starting with Nomi, the new 007, who is a Black woman, and including Paloma (Ana de Armas), a C.I.A. agent who guides Bond ...
James Bond In 'No Time To Die' Review: Daniel Craig's 007 Finale Shoots
After a cryptic prologue, we come upon a retired James Bond (Daniel Craig) running for his life and presuming that Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) set him up and is still working for S.P.E.C.T ...
No Time to Die
No Time to Die is a 2021 spy film and the twenty-fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Daniel Craig in his fifth and final portrayal of fictional British MI6 agent James Bond.The plot follows Bond, who has left active service with MI6, and is recruited by the CIA to find a kidnapped scientist, which leads to a showdown with a powerful and vengeful adversary armed ...
The 5 best James Bond films ever
James Bond fans have strong opinions over which 007 film is the best - and Rotten Tomatoes has given us the official top five ranking. Of 27 films in the iconic franchise, these 5 picks came out ...
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No Time to Die First Reviews: A Spectacularly Fitting Sendoff for Daniel Craig's 007

So, mission accomplished?

Is it one of the better Daniel Craig installments?

Is there a lot of fan service?

Is it also one of the more original Bond movies?

How is the action?

Does it still feel more grounded and intense than most Bond movies?

How is the plot?

What if you haven’t seen the previous movies?

Does it benefit from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s writing?

How is Daniel Craig’s final Bond performance?

How is Rami Malek’s villain?

How about Lashanna Lynch as the new 007?

Will we want more of any other characters?

Will we feel that record running time (163 minutes)?

So is No Time to Die a proper goodbye to Daniel Craig’s 007?

Will this finale leave us in tears?

Will it be a hard act to follow?

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Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, New York, Sept. 28, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 163 MIN.

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