The best James Bond: Every actor who’s played 007, ranked

3. Timothy Dalton (1987-1989)

Timothy Dalton was mostly a placeholder Bond for Pierce Brosnan. Had Brosnan’s series Remington Steele not been renewed for another season, the Welsh actor may have never been given a license to kill on the big screen. Dalton starred in only two films, which is double that of Niven and Lazenby. The Living Daylights and License to Kill were the studio’s attempt to escape the campy vibe from the Moore era and push the franchise in a much darker direction.

Dalton’s turn was an ill-fated attempt at combining the Moore version with Fleming’s gritty take in the novels. He also toned down the sex appeal that Sean Connery had made a staple of the persona. Despite these setbacks, Dalton did do an outstanding job bringing a more serious tone to the affair and did end up proving the franchise was more than perfectly capable of putting out solid drama within an entraining spy flick. He ended up ultimately quitting when a legal issue halted production for years. So given everything, it seems it just wasn’t Dalton’s destiny to be the best Bond ever, but it certainly wasn’t in the cards for him to be revered as the worst.