Director: John Glen

John Glen directed five consecutive James Bond films between 1981 and 1989, more than anyone else, having previously worked on the series as an editor and second unit director. That progression matters, because his entries are built around action sequences he knew how to cut before he knew how to stage them.

For Your Eyes Only deliberately stripped back the gadget excess of Moonraker and returned the series to something closer to procedure. He then handled the transition from Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton, and Licence to Kill remains the darkest film in the franchise, close enough to a revenge thriller that it damaged the series commercially.

His Bond run is the most consistent stretch of direction the franchise has had, and it went largely uncredited because the producers were always the authors of record.