The Cold War story is utterly fun even if the action is on the cheesy side.

| Apr 23, 2024

It unfolds like a profoundly “old-fashioned” spy story, with a conspicuous Cold War milieu, a Soviet cryptography device reminiscent of the Enigma machine and, best of all, an extended sequence set aboard the Orient Express.

| Mar 25, 2024

It is the mix of cliches, interesting stories, good action, and pure charisma that all blend together in a way that defined a genre that would never be the same after.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 28, 2022

A highly immoral film in every imaginable way but it sure is fun...

| Sep 29, 2021

Sean Connery's favorite Bond movie is based on John F. Kennedy's favorite Bond book, and who are we to argue with their tastes?

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 25, 2021

The second Bond film was already too self aware to remember to be itself.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 30, 2021

The story moves too slowly, fattened up with activities that are inconsequential and not action oriented.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 24, 2020

From Russia with Love is just an exciting film from start to finish.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 16, 2020

From Russia with Love is a complete and total success as both a Bond film and a spy film, loftily enjoying the best of both worlds as it further establishes an indomitable template for more adventures to come.

| Apr 29, 2020

A comedown from Dr. No, whose brisk parody here slackens into a queasy compromise with the real thing that tries to have it both ways and so fails to have it either way.

| Aug 13, 2019

It has a few sillier moments, but in general it's quite the tense cold war spy film, with some good foreshadowing and a few really good action set pieces.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2019

From Russia With Love perfectly threads the needle between art and commerce, showing us everything that's allowed the series to keep on keeping on.

| Nov 2, 2018

The pace fast and furious and the invention, I suppose, inventive in the sense that a new nonsense always follows hard on the heels of an old nonsense and blow follows blow in crunching virtuosity of method.

| Jul 20, 2018

Cliff-hanging, 1964: that's From Russia with Love. That is, you get a complete serial every five minutes, often with a new babe or two falling for James Bond's masculine charms.

| Dec 30, 2017

The series' tightest expression of brutes playacting as gentlemen

| Apr 12, 2016

The success of Dr. No has no doubt given the James Bond team added confidence, if that was necessary, and From Russia with Love is made by people who clearly know that they now have a gilt-edged formula to play with.

| Oct 23, 2015

Everything that worked in DR. NO is fully realized here. Sean Connery is 10 times more confident here as 007, oozing charm and masculinity.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 17, 2012

The second Bond is one of the best in the series, due to the intriguing plot, sinister villains, and fabulously staged fight aboard the Orient Express.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 16, 2012

It has more in common spiritually with Le Carre than Fleming. Only after James Bond's vulnerabilities have been further exploited than in "Dr. No" does he succeed. "Russia" is about as far as it gets from the biggest Bond, but it's easily the best.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 17, 2012

One of just a couple Bond adventures that is genuinely great as cinema.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 11, 2012