Skyfall voted the best James Bond movie in the franchise

As if anyone needed this kind of validation, but Skyfall is the best James Bond film. Period.

There’ll be no questions taken at this time. But while we refuse to indulge anyone in denial about the truth of the universe, we will share with you how this not-really-a-revelation came about.

Return to Skyfall in the official trailer

In the UK, William Hill Vegas conducted a survey in which they asked 3,500 Bond lovers – we could say fans, but it doesn’t capture just how much they adore this man – to have their say on the best and worst films of the franchise. There’s 27 movies so far, in case you’ve not been counting since they started being made in the 1960s, and so that’s a lot of ground to cover. Yet fans embraced the challenge.

Daniel Craig’s 2012 outing as 007 took 17.5 percent, while Sean Connery’s 1964’s James Bond in Goldfinger held second place with 8.5 percent of the votes. It doesn’t take a mathematician, which I can safely say I’m not, to see that that’s a dramatic difference between the top two results.

We’ve dealt with the top of the pile, but it’s time for us to air out the dirty laundry that is kept at the bottom, like those smelly gym socks you keep meaning to wash but then forget because you don’t hit the gym anymore. In last place is another Connery film, Never Say Never Again, which also happened to be his last time donning the 007 suit. Sometimes we go out with a bang, other times it’s a sad, little whimper.

To be Bond is to struggle to fit into a very specific mould that fans protect like Golem, as Idris Elbra discovered when he faced racist backlash after rumours of him being the next Bond gained traction. It’s a tough role to take on, that’s for sure.

As for the reasoning behind these choices, that is something only the fans who voted can truly know in their hearts. But regarded as both a commercial and critical success, bringing in a whopping $1.1 billion at the box office, it’s clear that the effort, explosions, tension, and bi-curious power of Bond couldn’t be contained.

“Craig's Bond embodies someone more vulnerable, and Skyfall is the peak of that. He fails his main missions, but still manages to entice us. Skyfall is a top bond movie, my favourite, and it presents itself as… kind of time capsule, where it is not significantly linked to a specific movie, instead the ending sets up, vaguely of course, two more movies” shared one Redditor on a thread that states that Skyfall is a “masterpiece”.

Despite Craig’s Bond being but a memory we can replay, the legacy his take on the character has left behind is one we’ll treasure. We’ll gather around, turn up the volume, and watch as our eyes are ablaze with the light of a burning Aston Martin DB5.