Sean Connery was the first actor to play James Bond in Eon’s groundbreaking franchise, and he set a high benchmark for all the subsequent actors who took on the role. Connery’s Bond movies established all the series’ now-familiar tropes: the megalomaniacal villains, the pre-title action sequences, the casual romantic interests (or “Bond girls”) – and, indeed, the climactic set-pieces.
Bond films usually culminate in an action-packed battle sequence at the villain’s lair, or at the site of their grandiose, apocalyptic plot. From an underwater battle to a showdown at Fort Knox, Connery’s movies culminated in some truly thrilling final set-pieces.
Diamonds Are Forever
After Blofeld escaped from the climactic showdown at his iconic volcano lair in You Only Live Twice, his rematch with Bond in Diamonds Are Forever was supremely underwhelming. Instead of taking place in a unique location like a military hangar burrowed into a volcano, this finale takes place on an oil rig off the coast of Baja California.
There’s an awesome climax in this sequence, as Bond takes control of the submarine that Blofeld is using to escape and kills two birds with one stone by crashing it into the base. But ultimately, this confrontation is a let-down after the thrilling finale of You Only Live Twice.
From Russia With Love
Connery’s second Bond film, From Russia with Love, doesn’t culminate in a traditional third-act battle sequence. Its climax is a confrontation between Bond and the side villain, Soviet assassin Red Grant, and the tag at the end of the movie sees the main villain, Rosa Klebb, disguising herself as a maid to ambush Bond in a Venice hotel room. Both villains have a generic motivation to kill 007 and recover a generic MacGuffin, the Lektor, which SPECTRE plans to sell back to the Soviets.
Since it’s not a huge spectacle, this finale pales in comparison to most of the others from the Connery era. But Grant is a fantastic villain and his brute force has audiences genuinely fearing for Bond’s life, despite his obvious plot armor.
Thunderball
On the whole, Thunderball is considered to be one of Connery’s weakest movies. After the near-flawless run of Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger, Thunderball received the series’ first mixed reviews (and established the hit-and-miss quality that would go on to define the franchise).
Set largely in the Bahamas, Thunderball is a generic Bond adventure with a forgettable villain. But its final battle is a subversive surprise that saves the movie from being a complete disaster. Like most Bond films, it culminates in a traditional battle sequence – but this battle sequence takes place underwater. The underwater action in this battle (and throughout the rest of the movie) was meticulously choreographed by a stunt team at the top of their game.
Dr. No
With one of the all-time most iconic Bond girls and one of the all-time most iconic Bond villains, the first film Dr. No set a high bar for the series. The climactic showdown at the villain’s lair perfected the trope right out of the gate. Bond and his love interest, Honey Ryder, are captured by Dr. No’s forces and taken to his remote hideout, where they escape captivity and bring down his sinister organization.
Dr. No gets the first of many great Bond villain deaths as he’s ironically brought down by the grandiosity of his diabolical scheme. Thanks to his metal hands, he’s unable to climb out of his own vat of volatile chemicals. This sequence created the template for all the Bond movie finales that followed.
You Only Live Twice
The final set-piece in You Only Live Twice is a classic Bond movie finale. This sequence has become the go-to template for spoofs of the series’ mythos. Blofeld’s secret lair burrowed inside a volcano is now a universally recognized symbol of diabolical megalomania. It’s a thrilling setting for the climactic showdown between 007 and the cat-stroking head of SPECTRE, which was five movies in the making.
Like Thanos, Blofeld was teased in various subplots and off-screen appearances before finally taking center stage as the primary villain of a movie – and, much like in the Avengers movies, when that ongoing conflict came to a head in the Bond series, it didn’t disappoint. (Unfortunately, their rematch in the next movie did disappoint.)
Goldfinger
Connery’s third Bond film, Goldfinger, is the gold standard (pardon the pun) for the series. It perfected the now-familiar formula with spot-on takes on all the tropes and conventions. Auric Goldfinger is the quintessential Bond villain, Pussy Galore is the quintessential Bond girl, the drug lab explosion is the quintessential Bond movie opening, and the showdown at Fort Knox is the quintessential Bond movie finale.
As Goldfinger spearheads his plan to destroy the gold in Fort Knox to increase the value of his own, his goons enter a large-scale battle with U.S. armed forces. Meanwhile, in the vault, Bond engages in a brutal fistfight with Oddjob, one of the franchise’s deadliest and most iconic henchmen. While Oddjob demonstrates his brute force, Bond simply throws bars of gold at him.
