Many lists put Die Another Day last
The Brosnan ones were some of my least favorites. The Connery Bond films were campy and silly fun, but you didn’t need to take them seriously. The characters and gadgets were the fun parts. But then we get to the Brosnan ones and the FX wrap the needle past silly fun to just ridiculous, like the helicopter chopping its way down the street. I also found the pacing off and the sequences seemed really choppy, so it was just bad storytelling, too. Next least favorites were the Dalton/Moore films, but I quite enjoyed Walken as the villain.
I’m mixed over the Craig Bond. I really like the refresh; the more serious tone, the more brutal face of these films. This Bond is much more cynical, unhappy, and troubled. Unfortunately the humor isn’t there anymore, and the introspective parts of the character can be helpful as much as they are unnecessary sometimes.
Casino Royale. Not the Daniel Craig one, the old one
Lazenby
One from each, excluding Lazenby (who happened to make my favorite) and non-canon (Never Say Never Again):
Connery - Diamonds Are Forever
Moore - A View To A Kill
Dalton - License To Kill
Dalton - Die Another Day
Craig - (I’m about to commit sacrilege here!) Skyfall
Overall top worst:
Diamonds Are Forever - the tone change between On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and this is jarring to the extreme, the fake-hip dialogue stinks to high heaven (“forget it, Charlie! You had your chance and you blew it!”), the mafia types were obsolete, quaint and flat cinematic caricatures, a deficiency amplified exponentially when The Godfather came out just a few months later.
Bonus negative points for an unfit and disinterested Connery, seemingly in constant self-amused form at how little effort he can get away with onscreen for a then record million-and-change dollar salary.
BUT…! There is another one, so much worse, but mercifully non-canon: 1967’s spoof Casino Royale, with David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. Oh my GOD is that thing unwatchably awful!
Quantum of solace