Movie · 1973 · Adventure, Action, Thriller · 2h 1m · PG · English
Curator score: 2.9/10 (220.5K ratings)
Bond is back. Back in action. Back with excitement.
Overview
James Bond must investigate a mysterious murder case of a British agent in New Orleans. Soon he finds himself up against a gangster boss named Mr. Big.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.9/10
IMDb: 6.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.17/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 67%
Metacritic: 55
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Guy Hamilton
Production
EON Productions, United Artists
Cast
Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Clifton James, Julius Harris, Geoffrey Holder, David Hedison, Gloria Hendry, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Tommy Lane, Earl Jolly Brown, Lon Satton, Madeline Smith, Roy Stewart, Arnold Williams, Robert Dix, James Drake, Dennis Edwards, Brenda Arnau
Curator Review
Verdict
A lively, uneven Roger Moore debut that swaps some of Bond’s straight-faced espionage for camp, action spectacle, and 1970s genre mashup energy. It’s memorable for its theme song, set pieces, and offbeat tone, but the racial caricatures and dated handling of Black characters make it a harder sell today.
Best for
Bond fans curious about the franchise’s campier turn
Viewers who enjoy 1970s action movies with a pulpy, anything-goes vibe
Fans of blaxploitation-adjacent crime thrillers and outrageous set pieces
People who like their spy films with a strong sense of period flavor
Skip if
You want the sleek, serious Bond style of the Connery or Craig eras
You’re sensitive to racially offensive stereotypes and dated cultural portrayals
You prefer tightly plotted thrillers over shaggy, episodic action
You dislike camp, one-liners, and a more playful Bond persona
Overview
Live and Let Die is one of the franchise’s most conspicuous pivots: Roger Moore arrives with a lighter touch, and the movie leans into that change with more jokes, more spectacle, and a looser, more playful rhythm. The result is often entertaining in isolation, especially when it commits to its oddball New Orleans-to-Caribbean detours and its big, absurd action beats.
Worth noting
What makes it stand out now is also what makes it difficult to recommend unreservedly. The film borrows heavily from blaxploitation and crime-movie textures, but it does so through a lens that frequently feels clumsy and insensitive. That tension hangs over the whole experience, even when the movie is moving fast enough to distract you.
Bottom line
Still, it has real franchise significance: Moore’s Bond is established here, the theme song is iconic, and the film’s willingness to be weird gives it a scrappy charm. If you come in for a pulpy 1970s spy adventure and can tolerate its uglier period baggage, there’s enough invention to justify the trip.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Ian West (4.5★) · 774 likes
Blaxsploitation, voodoosploitation, and Smokey and the banditsploitation—This is an Eli Roth Bond movie. 4.5 stars.
ScreeningNotes (2★) · 694 likes
"Hey man, for twenty bucks I'd take you to a Ku Klux Klan cookout!"
A simple case where form doesn't follow function. Roger Moore is (in)famous for bringing out all the campiest aspects of Bond. He cares more about bedding attractive women (always significantly younger than himself) than about finding the bad guys or saving the day, and when he does have to do some killing it's always with a snarky one-liner. This form of Bond is fine on its… more
SilentDawn (3.5★) · 620 likes
63
Modestly pleasurable. Love how Bond unzips a woman's dress using his fancy magnetic watch. Too funny. There's a lot in this entry. Walking on alligators. A bunch of racism. Graveyard lairs in the Caribbean. Roger Moore rocking a turtleneck and double holster. Yaphet Kotto. Jane Seymour. And don't forget the roughly 90-minute boat chase in the middle of the movie. Just long enough to get up and pee and maybe run a few errands before you're back for the big explosion. Bond films should be like this again, honestly. As much as I loved the Craig era, it's time to bring back the Silly.
Will Sloan · 477 likes
Having triumphed over Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Blofeld, James Bond now faces his most fearsome enemy yet: literally every black person in the United States.
The film that launched the world’s love affair with Sheriff J.W. Pepper.
Ethan Colburn (3.5★) · 332 likes
Hot tip for any of you Bond villains out there: if you have James Bond in your possession, just shoot him. Don't come up with an elaborate yet slow plan to kill him.
I wasn't super into this at the beginning but it really grew on me as the watch went along. While it lacks some of the classic Bond feel, it works pretty well as an action movie. Borrowing many elements from the Blaxploitation sub-genre, it makes this film… more