The Moore Era · Eon
Live and Let Die
Roger Moore arrives, and the series follows the fashions of the decade.
Availability changes by country and by week, so this searches JustWatch rather than guessing.
Can you skip Live and Let Die?
Yes, on a first watch. It is self-contained, and nothing in the main James Bond story depends on it. Come back to it later if you want more. Show only the James Bond essentials.
Skippable, and it is the clearest example of the series' habit of chasing whatever genre was selling. In 1973 that was blaxploitation, so Bond is dropped into Harlem and a fictional Caribbean island, with a drug operation, a tarot reader and a villain running a chain of restaurants as cover.
The racial politics are the problem and they are not incidental. The film's Black characters are almost entirely criminals or servants, the voodoo material is played as exotic menace, and the one sympathetic figure is written to be deceived. It is the Bond film that has aged worst, and that is a competitive category.
Roger Moore's first outing establishes his approach immediately: lighter, more amused, never seriously troubled, and noticeably less physical than Connery. Whether that is a relief or a loss is the standing argument about the next seven films.
Two things survive. Paul McCartney's title song is the best in the series by several measures, and the speedboat chase through the Louisiana bayou is a genuinely great sequence, undercut by Sheriff J. W. Pepper, a comic Southern policeman who proved popular enough to return in the next film.
James Bond guides
Where it sits in the James Bond order
- Release order
- #8 of 28
- Chronological order
- #8 of 28
- Released
- 27 June 1973
- In-universe era
- The Moore Era
What to watch next
In release order
In chronological order