Prompted by my good friends at Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, I decided it was time to finally sit down and rank all the James Bond movies here.

My plan is to make this an periodic event — even to the point of including years when there are no new entries.

Part of the reason for this is out of sensitivity that rankings on sites such as IMDb.com necessarily bias over time, because the site wasn’t around when so many of the older films first came out. There’s also a certain halo effect often dissipates with the passage of time, post-premier.

For good and bad.

The approach that’s always made most sense to me was lining ’em up and sequencing ’em, worst to best. In doing that this round, I can honestly say that I felt no ties. IMDb.com data are included to, um, show how wrong some assessments can be sometimes.

Annual James Bond movie ranking, 2011:

• Quantum of Solace, versus 6.8 with 121,862 votes … yup, beats out the 1967 Casino Royale for last place
• Casino Royale (1967), versus 5.2 with 13,505 votes
• Thunderball, versus 7.0 with 33,740 votes
• Never Say Never Again, versus 6.1 with 25,337 votes … maybe not “official” Bond, then; but not Thunderball-boring
• You Only Live Twice, versus 6.9 with 30,896 votes
• Moonraker, versus 6.1 with 32,488 votes
• Live and Let Die, versus 6.8 with 30,210 votes
• Die Another Day, versus 6.0 with 81,293 votes … lotsa credit for the sward fight
• A View to a Kill, versus 6.2 with 29,161 votes … “even” in a way that Die Another Day just wasn’t
• For Your Eyes Only, versus 6.8 with 29,229 votes … great plot
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, versus 6.8 with 27,408 votes … revisionists have overrated it
• Diamonds Are Forever, versus 6.7 with 31,398 votes
• Octopussy, versus 6.5 with 29,088 votes … great plot
• GoldenEye, versus 7.1 with 85,944 votes
• Casino Royale (2006), versus 7.9 with 209,776 votes
• The Man with the Golden Gun, versus 6.7 with 28,368 votes … without a doubt the most underrated James Bond film
• The Spy Who Loved Me, versus 7.1 with 31,082 votes … Roger Moore proved Bond a blockbuster post-Sean Connery
• From Russia with Love, versus 7.5 with 39,112 votes
• Licence to Kill, versus 6.5 with 30,554 votes
• Dr No, versus 7.3 with 45,403 votes
• The Living Daylights, versus 6.7 with 28,984 votes
• Tomorrow Never Dies, versus 6.4 with 59,207 votes … hit almost every mark
• Goldfinger, versus 7.9 with 58,806 votes
• The World Is Not Enough, versus 6.3 with 71,715 votes … pre-title, plot, surprises, clever moves, and Bond girl nail this