For those who follow the world of James Bond, you probably know that all 25 films are now on Netflix. Although I’ve seen every Bond film, I decided to rewatch the entire franchise from Dr. No to No Time to Die over the last month. Watching the films at this pace, I could really see the overall pattern of successful (and not-so-successful) Bond films. There’s the opening setup, the introduction of the case, traveling the world to solve it (with usually a few car chases or explosions along the way), meeting the beautiful women that are either going to help or hinder, with Bond finally meeting his villain towards the end of act two, with some sort sweeping lair as the centerpiece of the conflict. It has been a formula that has worked since Dr. No was released in 1962.

As I grew up in the 1970s, “my” Bond was Roger Moore. For me, he brought style, humor, and intelligence to a character that was forever immersed in the dark world of spies and espionage. While I later discovered the legendary Sean Connery, who introduced the character in Dr. No, I have always considered Moore’s portrayal of Bond as how it should be played. In my view, by the time Moore came into the picture, the producers knew what they wanted to see in Bond.

While I didn’t mind Timothy Dalton’s iteration of the character, he just played the character in two films. Personally, I always enjoyed Pierce Brosnan’s take on Bond. He seemed to combine the athleticism of Connery with the finesse of Moore. I would have liked to have seen him helm a couple more films. It was Brosnan’s films that got me interested in BMW. Now whenever I go to car shows, I always keep a lookout for a BMW Z8 (I try not to picture it being cut in half (The World Is Not Enough)!

After Dalton’s exit from the franchise, they brought in Daniel Craig, who gave the character a dimension and complexity that we never saw in any of the previous Bond films. Oh, we learned a bit here and there about Bond’s early life from the previous iterations, but Craig’s version gave us nearly the complete picture. There was also the underlying friendship of Craig’s Bond with M, played brilliantly by Judi Dench. While each of Craig’s Bond films can generally stand alone, there is an overall connection between them all—and between the entire franchise—SPECTRE.

First introduced in Dr. No, SPECTRE stands for Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. They are the global criminal organization of villains that test James Bond, MI6, and occasionally America’s CIA. The creation of SPECTRE was a brilliant piece of storytelling, as that organization is not part of a country (which served the Bond franchise well, particularly after the Cold War). As Dr. No said, “East, west, just points of the compass, each as stupid as the other. I’m a member of SPECTRE.”

While I can honestly say that I have enjoyed all the Bond films (sorry, I don’t count Never Say Never Again or even On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), of course, I do have my favorites.

Number One – Skyfall

Number Two – From Russia with Love

Number Three – GoldenEye

Number Four – The Spy Who Loved Me

Number Five – Moonraker

With Daniel Craig’s final film, No Time to Die, James Bond died at the end. While that ending worked for the story, it was a departure from all previous Bond films. In every other film, Bond didn’t die; the character’s story just continued with another actor. Since Amazon’s purchase of Bond’s IP last year from Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson’s EON Productions, the real question is, “Where do they go from here?”  Do they completely reimagine the franchise to start when Ian Fleming began writing the storied novels, or do they simply continue the story in the contemporary timeline and assign a new agent the designation 007 that comes with the famous name?

The question remains. Who will be the next…

Bond. James Bond.