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2. Peter Hunt
3. Martin Campbell
4. John Glen
5. Guy Hamilton
6. Lewis Gilbert
7. Sam Mendes
8. Roger Spottiswoode
9. Marc Forster
10. Michael Apted
11. Lee Tamahori
2 Marc Forster
3 Terence Young
4 Sam Mendes
5 Guy Hamilton
6 Lewis Gilbert
7 Martin Campbell
8 Lee Tamahori
9 John Glen
10 Roger Spottiswoode
11 Irvin Kershner
12 Michael Apted
Terence Young
Peter Hunt
John Glen
Martin Campbell
Guy Hamilton
Lewis Gilbert
Sam Mendes
Lee Tamahori
Roger Spottiswode
Marc Forster
Michael Apted.
Returning Directors
1. Terence Young
2. John Glen
3. Guy Hamilton
4. Martin Campbell
5. Sam Mendes
6. Lewis Gilbert
One offs
1. Peter Hunt
2. Marc Forster
3. Irvin Kershner
4. Michael Apted
5. Roger Spottiswoode
6. Lee Tamahori
Correct.
1. Terence Young
2. Martin Campbell
3. John Glen
4. Lewis Gilbert
5. Guy Hamilton
6. Sam Mendes
One-time directors
1. Peter Hunt
2. Marc Forster
3. Michael Apted
4. Roger Spottiswoode
5. Lee Tamahori
Your second list would match mine, but no Irvin Kershner?
Some explanations maybe:
Returning directors
1. Terence Young, basically invented cinematic Bond. The Connery-Young collaborations remain the epitome of indistructable early 60's Bond class to me.
2. Martin Campbell, reinvigorated the franchise twice with two modern classics.
3. John Glen, I love 80's Bond, I like how the Cold War took centre stage for most of the decade. Nothing beats a good espionage atmosphere. Nevertheless, Glen ended on his highest note with LTK, exploring Bond's character for the first time since 1969 and for only the second time in the franchise's history. Underrated Bond director.
4. Lewis Gilbert, style over substance, surely. Having said that, Gilbert does deliver three gorgeous pieces of spectacle.
5. Guy Hamilton, I have never been GF's biggest defender despite its undeniable iconicness. On the other hand, I have always been a big TMWTGG defender, one of my favourites. Still though, both 'Golden' films of Hamilton are very enjoyable, recent viewings of his other two Bond films didn't deliver to that extent unfortunately.
6. Sam Mendes, I don't like the road the series took after the fantastic CR-QOS double bill. SF isn't bad, but not my cup of tea. SP is a series' low.
One-time directors
1. Peter Hunt, OHMSS is revolutionary and well ahead of its time both as an action film as well as a study of Bond's character. LTK and CR would later on proof that not even by 1989, but only by 2006 audiences were ready for this sort of stuff.
2. Marc Forster, inserting CR's follow-up with a distinctively European touch Forster's only Bond film is a mix of stylised story-telling and thrilling action, underrated by general audiences to this day.
3. Michael Apted, TWINE is no perfect film, but to me it still remains an entertaining attempt at combining a more character-driven narrative with fine stunt work. My first Bond film, too.
4. Roger Spottiswoode, one ok Bond film with some great stuff in it, that unfortunately loses itself in an overdose of dual-wielded gunplay and non-stop action after the hour mark.
5. Lee Tamahori, I always wonder if DAD would have done something with its potential if the director had been less obsessed with questionable doube-entendres and CGI still in its infancy. As it stands, I don't think DAD is as horrid as I used to, though it nevertheless remains near the bottom.
1. Terence Young
2. Peter R. Hunt / John Glen (can't really put Hunt or Glen below the other; Hunt's fantastic OHMMS and Glen's films combined are so important to me)
4. Guy Hamilton
5. Lewis Gilbert
6. Martin Campbell
7. Michael Apted
8. Roger Spottiswoode
9. Marc Forster
10. Lee Tamahori
11. Sam Mendes (can't even bother watching SF or SP)
2. Lewis Gilbert
3. Terence Young
4. Peter Hunt
5. Michael Apted
6. Sam Mendes
7. Roger Spottiswoode
8. Guy Hamilton
9. Lee Tamahori
10. John Glen
11. Marc Forster
Close second for me is Hunt. He worked with the least talented actor to play Bond and still managed to deliver a masterpiece. To add to the complexity he did this in weather and unique settings.
Taking third place is Hamilton. He helped to bring many of the touches the series was known for. Guy also worked well with 2 Bonds and helped the debut of the second. He was the one who made sure Moore's Bond stood on his own 2 feet with no callbacks to the touches he had helped create. Wonderful stuff.
Worst Directors
John Glen, after his first two he should have stopped. The remaining 3 films were uneven and not as solid. He used slow motion before Tamamori. He always had a rather pedestrian direction.
Roger Spotiswoode was almost Glen like in his direction of TND and Brosnan. He manages to drain the spark of the film . Why was he chosen after Campbell...what a drop off.
Lee Tamahori his style was like overload of Michael Bay. Cute cuts and slow motion galore. No sense of the style and a terrible pacing. He wears the failure of DAD to be the disappointment it has become. Time makes it look worse.
This is hard to do given the collaborative nature of the movies. Bond directors tend to do a decent amount of writing, really. So to some degree you have to factor in just how much you like the movies overall, apart from obvious choices of the director.
Returning
JOHN GLEN
He directed four of my very favorite films, so he can't not be my favorite. He gets a lot of flak for being "workmanlike", but on the other hand, he never screwed anything up. He handles action brilliantly, and actually does get some nice shots in on films like FYEO and TLD. His direction of the bomb sequence in Octopussy I find brilliant. I've heard it said more than once that it feels like the thing is going to go off, even the 20th time you've seen the film. I think he's great.
SAM MENDES
He was blessed with great cinematographers, but I could look at his two movies, particularly Spectre, all day long. Gorgeous movies, both. And while I suspect many here would disagree, both of his films feel about 30 minutes shorter than they actually are to me. I'd have been happy to see him back for NTTD.
GUY HAMILTON
He has some sins to his name for sure, but I absolutely love the light, quirky, bizarre feel Guy brought to the movies. Maybe the stuff he introduced to the series got out of control in the hands of other directors (looking at you, Lewis), but I'm very glad he did what did. And it can't be a coincidence that Oddjob, Wint and Kidd, Tee Hee and Baron Samedi, and Nick Nack all happened on his watch. Brilliant creations all.
TERENCE YOUNG
I know he's the man that got it going, but I just like the first three more. And while I like the film, and some of it is in the editing and writing, Thunderball is a shockingly sloppy film in a lot of places.
LEWIS GILBERT
While not entirely unenjoyable, YOLT and TSWLM are probably the two dumbest films in the series for me. Again, writers are largely to blame, but Gilbert was surely involved at that level given that his films all follow the same basic story. I've pointed it out many times, but the number of times we see people in YOLT watching scenes from the film on monitors is embarrassing. Furthermore, I'm not a fan of Jaws, and I find Sean's and Roger's weakest performances to have happened on his watch.
MARTIN CAMPBELL
I'm not trolling, honestly. I'm not a fan of Goldeneye, and I enjoy Casino Royale quite a bit less than the average fan, so I'm not in awe of Campbell. Nothing about his direction stands out to me either, except an apparent interest in soap opera scenes on beaches. The one in Goldeneye is painful to watch. Goldeneye generally I find badly paced, with way too much Natalya stuff in the first half, and the rejuvenated tropes popping up at odd places. Has he ever done anything outside of Bond that people love? Perhaps directing two first movies was just a nice bit of luck for him: those ones always turn out well.
One-off
MARC FORSTER
QoS looks even better than the Mendes films, and I also like the editing style. Daniel gives his best performance, and the film, despite the writers' strike, has probably the most character development of any film in the series. He did a hell of a good job.
PETER HUNT
OHMSS is done brilliantly, save for the nonsensical pre-titles sequence (did they misunderstand the book?). Beautiful looking film, paced perfectly. And he got a pretty good performance out of George. If only he'd been allowed to do YOLT, we might have had a different trajectory in the tone of the films, and been saved some of the crappier moments in the series...
LEE TAMAHORI
I have no real problem with this guy. I find DAD perfectly watchable and entertaining, and he keeps things moving and interesting more than the other Brosnan directors do.
ROGER SPOTTISWOODE
He does well in the first half, but the second half of TND feels longer than all of Spectre. That shooting on the boat just goes on and on.
MICHAEL APTED
Boring as hell.
2. Martin Campbell
3. Peter Hunt
4. Sam Mendes
5. Lewis Gilbert
6. John Glen
7. Guy Hamilton
8. Marc Forster
9. Roger Spotiswoode
10. Michael Apted
11. Irvin Kershner
12. Lee Tamahori
2. Peter Hunt
3. Sam Mendes
4. Michael Apted
5. Terence Young
6. Lewis Gilbert
7. John Glen
8. Guy Hamilton
9. Roger Spotiswoode
10. Marc Forster
11. Lee Tamahori
12. Irvin Kershner
2. Guy Hamilton (another great action director. I love Cold Sweat).
3. Sam Mendes (revitalized - not "saved" - the saga on a kind of a necessary moment)
4. Peter Hunt (he would rank higher if he had made at least another Bond film)
5. Terence Young (he created the cinematic Bond, plain and simple)
6. John Glen (carried Bond through the 80s with style and flair)
7. Lewis Gilbert (made the 3 most epic films of the saga, and one of them saved the franchise)
8. Roger Spottiswoode (only one movie, but he did a good work on it)
9. Michael Apted (same as Spotiswoode)
10. Irvin Kershner (given the circumstances he didn't make that bad of a work)
11. Marc Forster (he made the most impersonal film of the saga IMHO)
12. Lee Tamahori (he went too far)
13/VERY HONORABLE mention: The five directors of CR67 (they deserve to be here even if it's in last place. Working on that disaster was heroic on itself. And they partly succeeded: for what it's worth, even if it's on a "so bad it's good" basis, CR67 is, for me, a very fun movie with a fascinating behind the scenes story).
i think since then my sensibilities have changed..
in terms of my favorite director for Bond, Peter Hunt has really grown on me over the years.. he has a great cinematic and artistic eye.. but i also love his editing style.. some may think it looks hokey, but there is something i kinda love about the look of the film when it's sped up at certain times - plus i love the artistic choice of using the echoes in OHMSS when Bond is beating up Draco's thugs outside his office..
i really wish we could've gotten a proper Lazenby / Hunt DAF.. i think that would've been spectacular.
Without him, Connery's iconic interpretation as we know it wouldn't exist.
Peter Hunt follows closely. One film but what a film it is! Deserves credit for being the most faithful to Fleming's novel plus his great editing skills lend his movie a unique visual style.
Guy Hamilton - Peaked early with the greatest Bond of all but went downhill from there.
Lewis Gilbert - Responsible for the silliest Bonds but also the most grandiose and visually stunning (YOLT being the best of the lot).
John Glen deserves credit for helming a couple of good entries (Dalton's) but nothing really special and his films don't bear any particular signature.
The rest are interchangeable...
Mendes
Campbell
Hunt
Glen
1. Terence Young
2. Martin Campbell
3. Peter Hunt
4. Lewis Gilbert
5. Sam Mendes
This is primarily based on the success and failures of each director. In my opinion, all three of Terence Young's films are perfect making him number one, both of Campbell's film were perfect making him number two, Hunt's only film is perfect making him number three. The only thing that separates these guys is how many they did.
As for the last two - with Gilbert, I like his first movie, love his second, and do not like his third and last, making him number four. With Mendes, he directed my favourite Bond film, which I think is perfect, but he also directed one of my least favourite Bond films and the latter was the biggest disappointment for me, so comes in fifth and last.
edit: Worth mentioning that I do believe Campbell deserves an enormous amount of credit, and I adore both of his Bond films. He is surely up there with Young, but Young established Bond and brought him to life with those first two films, and then synthesized the early films with Hamilton's GF in TB, which is no easy task I don't think, given how different the portrayal and depiction of 007 is in Hamilton vs. Young films.
Young brought a palpable sense of danger, he directed Connery better than anyone (and one could argue that his direction gave us the quintessential Bond performance from the quintessential Bond actor - he more than anyone else brought out that iconic performance from Connery and helped to shape him into the character), and he, moreso than any other director in the series save perhaps Peter Hunt, was able to bring the feel of Fleming's novels to life. Those first two, in particular, somehow feel like Fleming's prose. That is not easy to achieve, I don't think.
John Glen - A consistently solid Bond filmmaker and director of three of my favorites in the series (OCTOPUSSY, TLD and LTK).
2 Marc Forster
3.Cary Joji Fukunaga
4 Terence Young
5 Sam Mendes
6 Guy Hamilton
7 Lewis Gilbert
8 Martin Campbell
9 Lee Tamahori
10 John Glen
11 Roger Spottiswoode
12 Irvin Kershner
13 Michael Apted
Roger Spottiswoode is the most under-rated.
1. Young
2. Fukunaga
3. Glen