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007 By the Numbers: Every James Bond Statistic You Never Knew You Needed to Know
If you’re like us, there’s no point in watching movies unless you’re going to obsessively keep track of how often certain things happen in them. What use is entertainment without math, right?? So to celebrate the release of the new James Bond film, we watched all 23 officially sanctioned adventures — including Skyfall — and compiled many relevant statistics to improve your quality of life.
These numbers are for the entire series. Tomorrow we’ll do a movie-by-movie breakdown, and then, satiated, fall asleep in a big pile of numbers.
Total runtime (including credits): 2,891 minutes
Average runtime: 125 minutes
Shortest: 106 minutes, Quantum of Solace
Longest: 144 minutes, Casino Royale
Total number of people Bond kills: at least 232, for an average of 10 per film, or one every 12.5 minutes. His lowest body count is one in The Man with the Golden Gun; his highest is about 30 in GoldenEye.
Total number of people killed by Bond or anyone else: at least 615, for an average of 26.7 per film, or one death every 4.7 minutes
Total times he says “Bond. James Bond.”: 25, over 21 films. (He doesn’t say it in From Russia with Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice or Quantum of Solace.)
Total times Bond’s “license to kill” is specifically mentioned: Eight. (We might also count the following: Thunderball, when he tells a woman who doesn’t know he’s with MI6 that he’s “a licensed troubleshooter;” and A View to a Kill and Die Another Die, when “license to kill” is seen in Bond’s file on a villain’s computer screen but isn’t otherwise referenced.)
Total times Bond is called “007”: 129, for an average of 5.6 times per film. Q and the first two M’s call him that a lot; the Judi Dench M rarely does.
Different women Bond has sex with: 50
Number of those who wind up dead: 16, or 32%. If you sleep with James Bond, there is a one-in-three chance you will be killed by the end of the movie.
Number of films in which an animal is used as a means of killing or injuring someone: 10
Number of times it’s a shark: 4
All the animals used as weapons: crocodiles, dogs, electric eels, Komodo dragons, octopus, piranha, sharks, snake (undetermined), snake (python), tarantula
Number of films in which a villain reveals details of his plan only because he believes Bond will soon be dead: 7 (Moonraker is the last time this particular plot device was used)
Number of times Bond is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head: 11
By a drug (hidden in his drink, airborne powder or gas, blowdart, etc): 6
Number of films that end with Bond cradling his dead wife in his arms: 1
Number of films in which Bond is in the middle of a mission the first time we see him: 14
Number of times he’s being romantic with a lady the first time we see him: 4
Number of times he’s on his way to Felix Leiter’s wedding the first time we see him: 1
Number of films in which Bond’s famous martini is referenced: 15
Number of times someone else orders it for him because they already know what he likes: 5
Number of films in which Bond requests Bollinger Champagne or is seen to be drinking it: 12
Films whose titles are not explained or referenced in the films themselves: Live and Let Die, Tomorrow Never Dies (there’s a newspaper called Tomorrow, and its owner doesn’t want it to die, but…), Quantum of Solace (there’s a criminal organization called Quantum, and Bond is looking for solace, but…)
Films named after their villains: Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun
Films that do not have title songs: Dr. No, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me (though the song, “Nobody Does It Better,” does include the phrase “the spy who loved me”), Octopussy, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace
Films that start with a villain killing a Bond lookalike as practice for killing the real Bond: 2
Number of times someone uncorks a champagne bottle by shooting it: 2
Films that end with Bond having sex on camera, viewed by MI6 personnel: 3
Films in which Bond fakes his own death, with or without the knowledge and cooperation of his bosses: 3
Countries Bond goes to outside the U.K.: Afghanistan, Austria (x3), Azerbaijan, Bahamas (x3), Bolivia, Brazil, China (x2), Cuba (x3), Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic (post-1993), Egypt, France (x2), East Germany, West Germany, Germany (reunified, post-1990), Gibraltar, Greece, Haiti, Holland, Hong Kong (x3), Iceland, India, Italy (x5), Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, South Korea, Lebanon, Macau (x2), Madagascar, Morocco, Montenegro, Portugal, Russia (post-U.S.S.R.) (x3), Spain (x2), Switzerland (x2), Thailand, Turkey (x3), United States (x7), U.S.S.R. (x2), Vietnam.
Plus an unspecified Latin American country (Goldfinger) and the fictional San Monique (Live and Let Die) and Republic of Isthmus (Licence to Kill).