How often is the film title mentioned in James Bond movies?
One of my most enjoyable side jobs is the work I do for Guinness World Records. They work with wonderful Bruce Nash at The Numbers for the headline records (Top Grossing Movie, Biggest Budget, etc) and so they look to me for the slightly... stranger World Records.
One such record I delivered recently looked at James Bond movies. Specifically, the James Bond movie mentioned its own title most frequently in the dialogue.
The answer is revealed later in this article, but for a bit of fun, I'd like you to spend a moment to ponder what the answer might be. It really makes you think about how movie dialogue works, what the titles actually mean, and the whole thing reminds you of just how forgetful you are about Bond titles.
In order to answer this question, I collected subtitle files for all the Bond movies, reformatted them and then searched for keywords. Along the way, I had to deal with fun challenges, such as whether the lyrics of the movie should be included (I ruled not) and all spelling permutations ("Dr No", "Dr. No", "Doctor No", etc).
The James Bond Eras
James Bond has famously gone through a few different incarnations. And I feel that the titles reflect this:
Sean Connery - Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever. Titles in the Connery era tend to name central characters or evoke a sense of exotic adventure, harnessing a direct and adventurous appeal.
George Lazenby - On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Just one title does not a dataset make.
Roger Moore - Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill. Moore's titles suggest grandeur with a touch of wit, poetic, enigmatic, and outright fantastical.
Timothy Dalton - The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill. These fell more intense and stripped back, reflecting a gritty, more serious approach.
Pierce Brosnan - GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day. Brosnan-era titles feel somehow sillier, with an air of self-awareness.
Daniel Craig - Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, No Time to Die. With the exception of the first, Craig-era titles are quite obtuse and don't give much away.
The dialogue also reflects these changing tastes. For example, the phrase "Mr Bond" was more often than not used in a slightly knowing, campy way, resulting in it overindexing amount the Connery and Moore years.
Anyway, back to our core question - Which Bond movie mentions its own title the most?
Frequency of self-referential title mentions in James Bond films
The film 'Goldfinger' nearly took the top spot, with its title often cited due to the villain's notable presence. But it's pipped to the World Record by the name of the titular space shuttle Moonraker.
I don't know about you, but I found the answer rather pleasing. It was hard but not impossible to guess.
I couldn't find the answer anywhere online already so I suspect you might find this new World Record appearing pub quizzes very soon.
Notes
I got the subtitle files from OpenSubtitles.com. Many thanks to the folks there. I focused on the "official" (i.e. EON-produced) James Bond titles.
I intend to use the same process used here on a much larger dataset of subtitles to discover other World Records for Guinness. If you have any suggestions, please do reach out.
