MGM
This month , Daniel Craig earned the good reviews of his career for Luca Guadagnino ’s spat dramaQueer . But the seasoned English worker has always had an interesting career , from his early roles inThe Power of OneandTales from the Cryptto his more recent film like the Knives Out mysteries .
A rethink of his filmography is , therefore , expected and warrant — not dismissing his revolutionary 15 years as James Bond but cast them in the context of the variegate career out of which they spring . So prep those martinis ( shaken or stir ) and taper those knives — here are the 10 beneficial Daniel Craig photographic film .
MGM
10. Quantum of Solace (2008)
Regarded as a disappointment at the fourth dimension of its release , Quantum of Solace , Craig ’s second outing as James Bond , is easily the third - strongest of his adherence pictures .
There ’s a distinct , blurred optical style thanks to director Marc Forster ( the youngest helmer in the dealership ’s chronicle ) , a grampus spycrafty set piece at an radical - modern opera house house , and the always - excellent Gemma Arterton as a junior-grade Bond girl named , in the classical custom of the franchise , Strawberry Fields . Her murder by being covered in primitive vegetable oil ( sure , why not ? ) brings to take care a parallel sequence fromGoldfinger(1964 ) , another of the plastic film ’s nod to Bonds preceding .
9. Road to Perdition (2002)
Craig and Tom Hanks both play against eccentric — Hanks as an as amoral Chicago gangster , Craig as his hirer ’s ne’er - do - well boy — in Sam Mendes ’s adaptation of the 1998 computer graphic novelRoad to Perdition . With its unadulterated blacks and Theodore Harold White and eerie static shots , it promise Zack Snyder ’s more ego - consciously comic - book - adjacent films of the middle 2000s .
This one is of interest as a necessary harbinger to Mendes and Craig ’s later collaborations onSkyfallandSpectre , as Paul Newman ’s last on - screen role , and as a show window for Craig in his early sidereal day as a role actor / heavy . Craig , as Connor , a mobster ’s Logos no one has any particular interest in keep alive , makes use of the highly questionable American accent he ’d later supersede with his Benoit Blanc Foghorn Leghorn drawl .
8. Logan Lucky (2017)
In the sixth of Stephen Soderbergh ’s ( thus far ) seven heist movies ( the guy just loves heist ! ) , the thickheaded robber are chawbacon brothers Jimmy ( Channing Tatum ) and Clyde Logan ( Adam Driver ) , the target is the Charlotte Motor Speedway , and Craig is the demolitions expert who blows a hole in its vault .
The film , Soderbergh ’s first since his shortstop - lived “ retirement ” in 2012 , may ultimately have a mo too much on its judgement . But it ’s still a candy - colored carousel of horrid cameo and Bible Belt - philosophy , a exercise - classOcean ’s Eleven(or , as it ’s winkingly have-to doe with to in the movie , “ Ocean ’s Seven - Eleven ” ) .
7. The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
An dead bizarre relic of former 2010s culture , The Adventures of Tintinwas mean to be the first in a long - run animated franchise co - spearheaded by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson . That no sequel has since come out is perhaps thanks to its conspicuous usage of the now - archaic motion - capture technology pioneered by Robert Zemeckis in the early 2000s , or Spielberg ’s agenda , or Jackson ’s ( utterly pointless Hobbit sequels wo n’t make themselves ) .
But it ’s not for lack of charm on the part of this light - tread pipit of an adventure exposure , nor for deficiency of a memorable baddie , as Craig plays the malevolent treasure hunter Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine , for sure the only man in chronicle thus named with a British accent .
6. Skyfall (2012)
Is it , as has been hint , thebest Bond movie ever ? Absolutely not — it ’s not even Craig ’s best Bond film ever ( see below ) . ButSkyfallis an activity extravaganza that also do to be a reckoning with mortality and its own enfranchisement ’s mythos , a subtle iterate ofThe Odyssey , and the mantel for whatisunequivocally the ripe Bondthemeever . ( Adele’sSkyfalltune is so good that it managed through virginal residual staying power to advance Oscars not just for itself but also for Sam Smith ’s and Billie Eilish ’s textureless and odorless themes for the next two Bond films . )
5. Layer Cake (2004)
The directorial debut of futureKingsmandoyenne Matthew Vaughn , Layer Cakeis a witting throwback to an all - too - brief epoch of British law-breaking film that was already over by the time of its exit . ( I ’m referring to dialectically incomprehensible bit of scenery - chewing and gunplay likeLock , Stock and Two Smoking Barrels , Snatch , andSexy Beast , the former two also produced by Vaughn . )
Craig ’s a gangster and drug principal , name never revealed , who makes his path through an ensemble of British labored slugger including but not determine to Michael Gambon , Ben Whishaw , Tom Hardy ( aeon beforeVenom : The Last Dance ) , Sally Hawkins , and Sienna Miller — Miller at her dependable in the femme fatale / damsel in hurt blend she ’d come to perfect . Often credited as the deciding factor in Craig ’s adhesion cast , this fleet crime dramatic event is a toothsome mishmash of gamy and low , the alleyway and the country club .
4. Munich (2005)
As a South African Jewish machine driver for the team of agents , Craig embody the surging moral motivation for the cause but also the ambiguity in an officially unaffiliated squad of killers take out group around the world .
3. Knives Out (2019)
The new film fiber stiff enough to carry a franchise that have been produce in the retiring decade can be count on the fingers of one hand — really , now that I think about it , on one digit .
That honor hold out to Benoit Blanc , the consulting detective with the gamey - camp southerly accent and the proclivity for Stephen Sondheim , who debuted in Rian Johnson ’s fantabulous 2019 whodunitKnives Outand was played by — what ’s this ! — James Bond himself , seeking an relief valve from a straitjacketing identification with a undivided type . As Blanc jump - started an on-going Netflix enfranchisement that lookslikely to go on for years , perhaps it was a motley grace .
2. Casino Royale (2006)
bail bond was , simply , never better , not in the ’ LX and not since , than in Craig ’s muscular debut inCasino Royale , the latest and perhaps last bond paper film to be explicitly adapted from an Ian Fleming novel ( of the same name ) .
Yes , this Bond is game , yes , he ’s a street brawler with a face that count as if it ’s taken one too many punches , and yes , he ’s blonde , but Bond himself matter less in these movies than the deluxe patch and fate with which the filmmakers manage to surround him . Casino Royale , set in the earth of gamy - wager play and sport both an all - time Bond girl ( Eva Green ) and an all - meter baddie ( Mads Mikkelsen ) , gives the character stakes and centre and humanity but never discontinue to be pure carmine - centre play .
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
statute mile comfortably than its Swedish - language adjustment from 2009,director David Fincher ’s take on the 2005 Swedish mystery novel by Stieg Larsson is as manoeuvrable and sinuous as its protagonist , hack Lisbeth Salander ( Rooney Mara ) . Craig ’s crusading journalist is manifestly in over his head in this floor of sequential murders link up by eerie familial connections .
But Craig himself is dictatorially brooding and plays off Mara with aplomb . That the film never spawned the enfranchisement it deserved itself can in all likelihood be blame on Bond . But then , so can everything .
