James Bond began in Ian Fleming’s series of spy novels before making his screen debut in Dr. No (1962), starring Sean Connery as Agent 007, a suave British Secret Intelligence Service operative whose missions against megalomaniacal villains established the template for the modern spy thriller. Produced by Eon Productions, the character has since been portrayed by six actors across more than sixty years, making Bond one of the longest-running and most successful franchises in cinema history, with its gadgets, cars, and title sequences becoming instantly recognisable cultural touchstones.
Across 25 official Eon-produced films, from Dr. No through to No Time to Die (2021), the Bond franchise has grossed more than $7 billion worldwide, spanning the tenures of Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. In February 2026, Amazon MGM Studios became a co-owner of the franchise’s creative direction, and with director Denis Villeneuve now leading the search for the next actor to play 007, alongside screenwriter Steven Knight and producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman, the series is entering a new era ahead of an anticipated 2028 release.
Bond’s rotating cast of villains and femme fatales has long been one of the franchise’s greatest strengths, including Famke Janssen as the memorably lethal Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995), Robert Davi as drug lord Franz Sanchez in Licence to Kill (1989), and Julian Glover as Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981), each part of the deep bench of character actors who have given the series its enduringly quotable rogues’ gallery across six decades of missions.
With a new Bond actor expected to be announced later in 2026 and filming anticipated for late 2026 or early 2027, the franchise stands at one of its most closely watched transitions in decades. Bond’s status as cinema’s most enduring spy saga continues to draw enormous collector interest across posters, props, and signed memorabilia spanning every era of the character’s history, from Connery’s original tuxedo to Craig’s more recent tenure.
Bond’s cultural footprint extends well beyond the films themselves, having shaped decades of spy fiction, fashion, and even real-world gadgetry aspirations, while its theme songs, from Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” to Adele’s Academy Award-winning “Skyfall,” have become a genre unto themselves within popular music. The character’s famous Aston Martin DB5, first introduced in Goldfinger (1964), remains one of the most recognisable vehicles in film history, and Bond memorabilia spanning six decades of actors and eras continues to command some of the strongest and most consistent prices in entertainment collecting.
Judi Dench’s tenure as M across seven films, spanning both the Brosnan and Craig eras, remains one of the franchise’s most significant recurring roles, while Q’s ever-evolving gadgets, from Aston Martins to exploding pens, have remained a beloved constant across every actor’s tenure as 007, regardless of how seriously each era treated its own tone.