Over the years, I’ve noticed that some websites listing the James Bond movies tend to gloss over the unofficial entries, either mentioning only a few or ignoring them entirely. In my mind, I’ve always considered the unofficial James Bond movies to be the 1954 made-for-TV Casino Royale, the 1967 spoof Casino Royale, and 1983’s Never Say Never Again. So where did my personal “three” come from? I believe I first saw them identified as such on one of the earliest Bond websites, Kimberly Last’s James Bond site, and apparently that list stuck with me for good.

As far as any debate amongst the three, there isn’t too much, but in my opinion, Never Say Never Again has the strongest case, naturally, with Sean Connery returning as Bond after Kevin McClory’s long-running Thunderball ownership dispute. Meanwhile the two Casino Royales require a bit more imagination to squeeze under the Bond umbrella since the 1954 version was a CBS television production running less than an hour and featured an American Bond, while the 1967 film was essentially a glorified spy spoof but had enough official James Bond movie alumni to catch Bond fans’ attention.

As far as I know, there has never been an official unofficial list from the official James Bond production itself, so for me, the debate is settled by tradition, with these three movies forever occupying my “unofficial” James Bond movie list.