James Bond, codename 007, is a fictional character and the titular protagonist of Eon Productions' rebooted James Bond film series, first introduced in the 2006 film Casino Royale. Portrayed by British actor Daniel Craig, this interpretation of the character, and the actor portraying him, received critical praise for a "caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007" – a darker, more realistic tone than the lighter characterisations portrayed in past Bond films.
The rebooted series spanned five films—Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021)—all starring Craig. This version of Bond is killed at the end of the lattermost film, making him, to date, the only version of the character in the Eon Productions James Bond films to die.
Background In 2004, two years after Pierce Brosnan's final screen appearance as Bond in Die Another Day, Eon Productions decided to reboot the James Bond franchise with an adaptation of Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale, the first novel in the Bond series. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who own the rights to the franchise and the character, decided to portray Bond, who had been an ageless character in 20 films since 1962's Dr. No, at the beginning of his career as 007, a secret agent in the British secret service agency MI-6 with the discretionary "license to kill". Paul Haggis, who co-wrote the script with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, said that they wanted "to do for Bond what Batman Begins did for Batman".
In October 2005, Daniel Craig was cast as Bond for the first film in the reboot series, Casino Royale, after signing a deal to play the character in four films. Director Martin Campbell decided to cast Craig after seeing his performance in the 2004 thriller film Layer Cake.
The casting of the blond-haired, Craig was initially controversial, as the actor did not fit the traditional portrayal of Bond as "tall, dark, and handsome". After the film premiered, however, Craig won acclaim for his characterisation of Bond, with critics praising him for bringing both a dark, morally ambiguous edge to 007 and a humanity and vulnerability to the character that had not been seen in previous portrayals.
Fictional character biography Character's life prior to the films The Craig reboot series borrowed several details of Bond's early life originally created by Fleming, while incorporating geopolitical events that occurred in the 1990s and 2000s. Like Fleming's original character, Bond is the son of Sir Andrew Bond and his wife Monique, both of whom died in a climbing accident when Bond was 12. Before the death of his parents, Bond was educated in Switzerland and in West Germany, where his father was stationed as a Vickers executive. Bond briefly lived in Skyfall Lodge, his family's ancestral home in Scotland, before being adopted by family friend Hannes Oberhauser. Following Oberhauser's death in an avalanche, Bond was raised by his aunt, Charmain Bond, and attended Britannia Royal Naval College.
After conducting a year of general sea service, Bond served as an intelligence officer aboard during Operation Granby. He subsequently transferred to the SBS, during which he was attached to 030 Special Forces Unit, seeing covert service in Iraq, Somalia, Iran and Libya. In Bosnia, he was credited with saving the lives of nearly 100 men from a Serbian militia. He was recruited by the RNR Defence Intelligence Group and awarded the rank of Commander. His work provided vital intelligence during key moments with Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Indonesia, China and North Korea. In Libya, Bond was able to secure detailed assessments of the status of the Libyan government's reputed financial ties to numerous terrorist organizations. During his tenure at the RNR DI Group, he attended specialized courses at Cambridge (where he achieved a first in Oriental Languages), Oxford and other institutions. Bond left the RNR DI Group after recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) at the age of 30.
Bond then was appointed Senior Advisor at the British Embassy in Rome. He was promoted to Ops Specialist simultaneous with this posting. Although based nominally in Rome, his duties took him to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, France, Spain, China, and the United States. He worked back-channel sources to aid in solving a minor crisis between the U.S. and China. Afterward, he was posted to the MI6 headquarters in London, where he continued to work as a Mission Specialist (within Black Ops) in such locations as Cuba, the United States, Austria, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Sudan, and the UAE.
Appearances Films Casino Royale Bond is promoted to MI-6's "00" branch as agent 007, with a discretionary "license to kill", after assassinating corrupt MI-6 Section Chief Dryden (Malcolm Sinclair), who was selling state secrets, and his terrorist contact, Fisher (Darwin Shaw). Following a botched mission in Madagascar in which he kills bombmaker Mollaka Danso (Sébastien Foucan) and creates an international incident by blowing up an embassy, he is nearly fired by MI-6 Chief M (Judi Dench), but he redeems himself after foiling a terrorist bombing of an aerospace prototype.
M sends Bond to Casino Royale in Montenegro on a mission to bankrupt terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) in a high-stakes poker game to force him to give MI-6 information about his clients in return for political asylum. He is accompanied by French secret agent Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and British Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green); Bond and Vesper eventually fall in love.
During the poker game, Le Chiffre almost kills Bond by poisoning his drink with digitalis, but Vesper saves his life, and Bond ultimately wins the game and bankrupts Le Chiffre with additional financial backing from CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). Later that night, however, Le Chiffre kidnaps Bond and Vesper and reveals that Mathis is working for him. Le Chiffre tortures Bond for the password of the account in which his money has been stored, but terrorist liaison Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) interrupts and executes Le Chiffre for losing his clients' funds.
While recovering in a hospital in Venice, Bond has Mathis arrested, and decides to resign from MI-6 and start a new life with Vesper. Soon afterward, however, M calls him and reveals that the money from the poker tournament was never transferred back to MI-6, and Bond figures out that Vesper embezzled it. He finds Vesper handing the money over to a group of terrorists, who take her prisoner; he manages to kill Vesper's kidnappers, but he fails to stop her from committing suicide by drowning herself.
He deals with the loss by renouncing Vesper as a traitor, but M tells him that Vesper only betrayed him because the organisation behind Le Chiffre had kidnapped her boyfriend and threatened to kill him unless she did their bidding; she also reveals that Vesper made a deal with Le Chiffre's superiors to give them the money in return for sparing Bond's life. Bond finds Mr. White's name in Vesper's cell phone, tracks him to his home in Lake Como, and shoots him in the leg. As he takes White into custody, he introduces himself: "The name's Bond, James Bond."
Quantum of Solace Bond turns White over to M, but White manages to escape with help from traitorous MI-6 agent Craig Mitchell (Glenn Foster), whom Bond kills.
Bond discovers that corrupt industrialist Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) is working with White in the criminal organisation Quantum, which was the power behind Le Chiffre, to install exiled dictator Luiz Medrano (Joaquín Cosío) as the president of Bolivia to get exclusive rights to the country's water. Bond teams up with Mathis, who has been proven innocent, and Bolivian Intelligence agent Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) to stop Greene and Medrano.
However, Greene makes a deal with Leiter's corrupt CIA superior Gregg Beam (David Harbour) to send CIA and MI-6 agents out to kill them. Police officers working for Greene kill Mathis, and M reluctantly puts a capture or kill order out on Bond, who has been framed for his murder and that of MI-6 office worker (and Bond's lover) Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton).
Bond and Camille ultimately foil Greene's plot with help from Leiter, and Camille kills Medrano, who murdered her entire family right in front of her when she was a child. Bond interrogates Greene about the people he works for, and leaves him in the middle of the desert, where he is later murdered by Quantum agents.
After M proves to U.S. intelligence that Bond is innocent, Bond finds and apprehends Vesper's boyfriend Yusef Kabira (Simon Kassianides), a Quantum agent who seduces female intelligence operatives and pretends to be kidnapped so they will give Quantum top-secret information in the belief that it will save his life. Bond returns to active service, and learns to forgive Vesper and move on.
Skyfall During a mission in Istanbul to recover a hard drive containing the identities of embedded secret agents, Bond is accidentally shot by fellow MI-6 agent Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and presumed dead. Bond in fact survives, but is seriously injured. He uses his supposed death to disappear into the Caribbean, where he abuses alcohol and painkillers to cope with his physical trauma.
When MI-6 headquarters are bombed, however, he offers his services to M to find the culprit, even though he blames her for giving the order that resulted in his getting shot. Even though Bond fails the physical and psychological tests needed to be cleared for duty, M sends him to Shanghai to investigate the attack.
He finds the mastermind of the bombing, former MI-6 agent turned cyberterrorist Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who holds a grudge against M for turning him over to the Chinese government years earlier in exchange for the return of several captured agents and a peaceful transition of sovereignty. Bond manages to capture Silva, but he escapes and tries, unsuccessfully, to kill M during a government deposition.
Bond takes M to Skyfall to wait for Silva and reunites with the estate's keeper, Kincaide (Albert Finney), whom he has not seen since he was a boy. That night, Silva and his men open fire on Skyfall, mortally wounding M, but Bond repels their attack by setting off explosives within the estate. Bond kills Silva, but he is too late to save M, who dies in his arms. Bond returns to the new MI-6 headquarters to report to Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the new M, for duty.
Spectre Bond goes on an unauthorised mission to foil a terrorist bombing in Mexico City, the last order issued by the previous M before her death. Bond kills the perpetrator, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), who is wearing a skeleton-shaped ring that is linked to a mysterious organisation called Spectre.
M suspends Bond from service for disobeying orders, while Joint-Intelligence Service Director Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott) tries to shut down the 00 section and replace it with a global surveillance program called "Nine Eyes". Bond goes rogue to find Sciarra's employers, with covert help from Moneypenny and MI-6 quartermaster Q (Ben Whishaw). With the assistance of Sciarra's widow Lucia (Monica Bellucci), Bond infiltrates a secret meeting of Spectre's leaders, and is stunned to discover that the organisation is led by Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), his adoptive brother who was presumed to have died 20 years earlier.
Bond discovers that Mr. White is in fact a member of Spectre, and finds him in Austria, where his old foe is dying of thallium poisoning. White implores Bond to protect his daughter, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), from Spectre before killing himself. Bond saves Madeleine from Oberhauser's thugs, while Q reveals that Le Chiffre, Greene, and Silva were all Spectre agents.