No Time to Die (2021)

No Time to Die is the twenty-fifth film in the James Bond series and the fifth and final to star Daniel Craig as MI6 agent James Bond. Released in September 2021 after multiple delays, it closed an era that began with Casino Royale in 2006 and ended with the first Bond film to kill its protagonist.

About the Film

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the first American to helm a Bond film, No Time to Die was produced by Eon Productions under Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The script went through several hands. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who had worked on every Bond film since The World Is Not Enough, wrote the initial treatment. Danny Boyle was attached to direct with John Hodge writing, but both left in August 2018 over creative differences. Fukunaga stepped in a month later and co-wrote the final screenplay with Purvis, Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who was brought in at Daniel Craig’s request for a polish.

Principal photography ran from April to October 2019, and the release was delayed first by Boyle’s departure and then by the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing it from April 2020 to September 2021. The budget, between $250 and $301 million, made it one of the most expensive Bond films ever produced. Linus Sandgren, who won an Oscar for La La Land, served as cinematographer. His work leaned into what he called the soul of Bond, mixing the glamour of older films with the handheld intimacy of the Craig era. The opening sequence in Matera, Italy, shot partly with IMAX cameras, moves from a romantic scene at a cemetery to a foot chase, then a motorcycle chase, then a car chase in the Aston Martin DB5.

The Story

The plot picks up after Spectre. Bond has retired to Jamaica, living quietly, until Felix Leiter from the CIA asks for help extracting a kidnapped scientist. The scientist, Valdo Obruchev, has created Project Heracles, a bioweapon made of nanobots that can be programmed to kill specific people based on their DNA. The nanobots pass harmlessly through anyone else and can be spread by touch.

Bond’s investigation brings him back into contact with MI6, where he meets Nomi (Lashana Lynch), a new agent who has taken the 007 designation since his retirement. The villain is Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), a bioterrorist whose family was killed by SPECTRE. Safin wants revenge, and Heracles is his tool. He uses it to wipe out SPECTRE’s leadership, then turns it toward the world. The film’s emotional core is Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), the psychologist Bond fell in love with in Spectre. Safin has a personal connection to her: he murdered her mother when she was a child. He infects Bond with nanobots programmed to kill Madeleine and her young daughter Mathilde, meaning Bond can never touch them again.

In the final act, on Safin’s island, Bond chooses to stay behind as missiles destroy the facility, sacrificing himself to ensure the nanobots cannot harm his family. He dies, and the film ends with Madeleine telling Mathilde about her father.

The Music

Billie Eilish performed the title song, written with her brother Finneas O’Connell. At eighteen, she was the youngest artist to record a Bond theme. The song was released in February 2020, a year before the film, and won the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media before the film even premiered. It later won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making it the third consecutive Bond theme to win the Oscar, after Adele’s Skyfall and Sam Smith’s Writing’s on the Wall.

Hans Zimmer composed the score, replacing Dan Romer, who left in November 2019 due to creative differences. It was the first time a Bond composer had been replaced during post-production. Zimmer recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the London Voices choir and guitarist Johnny Marr. The score quotes John Barry’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, particularly the track We Have All the Time in the World, which appears in the Matera sequence and again during the ending.

Reception and Legacy

No Time to Die received generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 83 percent rating, with critics praising Craig’s performance and the emotional weight of the ending. It grossed over $774 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2021 and the third-highest-grossing Bond film. It was nominated for three Academy Awards and won Best Original Song.

The film is also a historical marker. It was the last Bond film produced under the Broccoli-Wilson family, who had controlled the franchise since 1961. In February 2025, Amazon MGM Studios took full creative control of the series. Whether the next Bond film acknowledges the events of No Time to Die, or starts fresh, is an open question. But Craig’s era ended here, with a death, which no other Bond actor got.