The James Bond pre-title sequences came a long way from the early days of Sir Sean Connery through the 70s with Sir Roger Moore and into the 80s with Timothy Dalton. Each movie would try to outdo the previous film's opening scene, ramping up the action, stunts and humor in exotic locations around the world.
The 80s saw a big transition for the Bond franchise with three movies starring long-running 007 Roger Moore and two with the underrated Timothy Dalton. The latter's take on Bond was starkly different than Moore's. Dalton's Bond was more gritty, angry and had a lot less patience than Moore. John Glen directed all five Bond movies released in the 80s and each has a memorable opening sequence. Excluding 1983's unofficial Bond foray, Never Say Never Again, here is every pre-title sequence from Bond movies of the 80s, ranked.
5
'For Your Eyes Only' (1981)
For Your Eyes Only begins with an homage to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, as Bond visits the grave of his late wife Tracy, who passed away at the end of the 1969 movie. A Universal Exports helicopter is sent to pick up Bond near the cemetery, as a priest prays. The helicopter is manipulated by what appears to be a disabled Blofeld, complete with a white cat wearing a diamond necklace, a great nod to 1971's Diamonds are Forever.
After some thrilling helicopter action, Bond precariously climbs out of the back and into the driver's seat and disables Blofeld’s remote control. 007 takes control of the helicopter and picks up Blofeld by the landing skids through his wheelchair and disposes of him by dropping him down an exhaust shaft. It is a fast-paced scene complete with thrilling action and a lot of humor. The pre-title sequence has nothing to do with the plot of the movie, which has Bond trying to locate the lost Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC), used by the Ministry of Defense to coordinate the Royal Navy's fleet of submarines.
4
'A View to a Kill' (1985)
A View to a Kill is the seventh and final Bond flick starring the late Sir Roger Moore. The movie is peak 80s Bond and tapped into the MTV audience with its glossy and quick-cutting action. It shines a light on the fashion, culture, and music of the decade with Duran Duran's iconic theme song. The pre-title scene is full of action, romance, classic stunts and hilarious moments.
It features 007 retrieving a microchip from a dead spy buried in the snow in Russia. Bond is chased on skis by a slew of henchmen and a helicopter. After he loses his skis, Bond hops on a snowmobile, which is quickly destroyed. 007 uses a skid from the discarded snowmobile as a snowboard to get away, as the sounds of The Beach Boys classic song "California Girls" surprises the audience in the most tongue-and-cheek way. The opening scene does move the plot forward involving microchip technology, which eventually leads Bond to California's Silicon Valley.
3
'The Living Daylights' (1987)
The Living Daylights marks the debut of Timothy Daltonas 007. Dalton's take on the character was more gritty, angry and ruthless than Moore's Bond. The underrated film kicks off with a training mission to infiltrate the radar installation at Rock of Gibraltar. When agents start getting killed, Bond springs into action.
The pre-title sequence has a jump scare, thanks to Gibraltar’s famous Barbary Macaque monkeys, and an incredible fight sequence on a truck carrying explosives that is racing down the mountain while on fire. Bond escapes by employing a parachute at the last second after the truck breaks a barrier and flies off a cliff. 007's parachute is damaged by the truck explosion, and he's forced to land on a yacht, where there just happens to be a beautiful woman all alone. Dalton steals her huge 80s mobile phone and calls headquarters. She asks who he is, which gives Dalton the opportunity to finally introduce himself as the new Bond, James Bond.
2
'Licence to Kill' (1989)
Licence to Kill is the second of two Bond films starring Welsh actor Timothy Dalton. It's the first Bond movie to secure the PG-13 rating, which was created in 1984, due to graphic violence and the dark themes in the movie. The opening sequence establishes Franz Sanchez, played by Robert Davi, as a pathologically evil villain.
The pre-title sequence opens with Bond and Felix Leiter in a limo heading to Leiter's wedding in Key West, Florida. They get word that drug lord Sanchez is nearby and hop in the chopper and fly to capture him. After a shootout, Sanchez escapes alone in a plane. Bond and Leiter hop back in the helicopter and eventually capture Sanchez when Bond gets lowered down from the chopper onto Sanchez's plane and connects a cable to it, rendering the plane useless. Bond and Leiter leap from the plane and parachute down in time for the wedding. It's a thrilling sequence with a great balance of humor, action and a wild stunt.
1
'Octopussy' (1983)
Image via United Artists
Octopussy has an outstanding pre-title sequence. Bond infiltrates a Latin American military base. Disguised as "Col. Toro," 007 plants an explosive device on an aircraft before being captured. He eludes his captors via the beautiful Karina, who entices the soldiers by keeping an eye on Bond, just enough to let him escape.
He hops in a tiny jet and takes off out of the back of a fake horse trailer. The villains shoot a heat-seeking rocket towards Bond. He tries to out maneuver the rocket but can't shake it. He eventually makes his way through a hangar where the rocket strikes an aircraft, resulting in one of the biggest and most outrageous explosions in Bond history. Once 007 is clear, he learns his plan is running out of fuel. In typical Bond fashion, he lands on a street, folds the plane's wings up and pulls up to a gas station and says, "Fill 'Er up."
COLLIDER.
Collider · Quiz
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero QuizWhich Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner?Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
QUESTION 1 / 10THE MISSION
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
QUESTION 2 / 10TRAVEL STYLE
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?How you get there is half the mission.
QUESTION 3 / 10UNDER FIRE
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
QUESTION 4 / 10DOWNTIME
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
QUESTION 5 / 10COMMUNICATION
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
QUESTION 6 / 10THE VILLAIN
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
QUESTION 7 / 10LOYALTY
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do?Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
QUESTION 8 / 10TOOLKIT
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace?A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
QUESTION 9 / 10THE COST
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
QUESTION 10 / 10THE LAST STAND
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been AssignedYour Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
YOUR PARTNER
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
YOUR PARTNER
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
YOUR PARTNER
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
YOUR PARTNER
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
YOUR PARTNER
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
