James Bond movies free on YouTube: Where to get started with 007 - CNET

As first embodied by Sean Connery, Bond set the standard for secret agents on screen, and the action film franchise has stood the test of time.

Even if you've never seen a James Bond movie, it's likely you have something from the 007 franchise, a pop culture powerhouse, stuck in your trivia brain.

And you're thinking, maybe you should finally watch one of the movies, or even indulge in a Bond binge.

Or if you're already a confirmed 007 fan, it's a chance to weigh in on Connery's quips, Moore's merits, Brosnan's best or the one-hit wonder that was George Lazenby.

Movie fans have strong feelings about who played Bond best (and worst).

Now there's a new James Bond film on the way: No Time to Die, due to arrive in theaters in April 2021.

(That is, if it doesn't land on a streaming service first.) For those of you keeping count, it's Bond 25 in the canon.

It's also expected to be the fifth and final Bond film for Daniel Craig, the latest embodiment of secret agent 007.

If you watch even just a few of the Bond movies from the last six decades, you'll be in good shape to weigh in on that movie-making moment.

Daniel Craig's first outing as James Bond is a terrific spy/action movie, period.

Craig himself delivers all the muscle and menace the character deserves, in keeping with Fleming's depictions and as measured against Connery, still the standard by which all other Bonds are invariably judged.

Not that there's anything wrong with it, but the two movies that followed are more definitive -- they're often the top two in lists of the best Bond movies.

You'll find homages to Bond in everything from the Kingsman franchise to the Despicable Me movies (especially the first one) to 2019's Spies in Disguise, an animated comedy with Will Smith as a tuxedo-wearing, gadget-equipped secret agent (who gets turned into a pigeon).

For a deeper album cut, look out for a pair of movies from the 1960s -- Our Man Flint and In Like Flint -- in which James Coburn gives a goofy-brilliant turn as a very Bond-like secret agent.

It's worth picking up one or two of the books if only for the comparison with the movies -- which diverge anywhere between a little and "lose everything but the title." .

In the official Bond canon -- the films made by Eon Productions, starting with Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli, and continuing with others in the Broccoli clan -- there are 25 films, including the upcoming No Time to Die.

Because of licensing issues, there were two other, non-canonical movies, including (confusingly) one starring Connery, for a grand total of 27.

We've already gone over the Daniel Craig version, a strong contender for best and most definitive Bond movie ever. .

The plot, such as it is, involves trying to fool the bad guys with a number of different people claiming to be James Bond, including David Niven (the real Bond), Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and former "Bond Girl" Ursula Andress.

It's a roughly 52-minute episode in which American actor Barry Nelson plays the hero as "Card Sense Jimmy Bond," an agent for the "Combined Intelligence Agency" whose delivery tends toward watered-down Sam Spade