Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and copasetic impending yearly calendar renewals.

Today Matt & Todd are joined by 00‑fanboy Mike to discuss yet another holiday classic (Hello Lifetime, get on this): 1995’s GoldenEye.

Directed by: Martin Campbell (also director of Casino Royale (2006))

Starring:

Pierce Brosnan as “Agent 007” Bond, James Bond

Whit Bissell Award Winner: Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan

Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova

(Retroactive Whit Bissell Winner:) Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp

Joe Don Baker as Jake Wade

Judi Dench as M

Whit Bissell Award Winner: Alan Cumming as Boris Grishenko

Whit Bissell Award Winner: Robbie Coltrane as Zhukovsky

Whit Bissell Award Winner: Minnie Driver as the woman singing "Stand by your Man" in Robbie Coltrane's scene

GoldenEye is an explosive spy thriller and widely regarded as one of the strongest Bond films; especially among those not starring Sean Connery or Roger Moore. The action kicks off immediately with a thrilling opening sequence, barrels through an all‑timer tank chase, and ends in a cataclysmic finale that keeps you locked in from start to finish.

This Bond is a bit more dialed‑back than the 60s‑era madness you might associate with the Austin Powers parodies, but what it lacks in “traditional Bond‑ness” it makes up for with a sharp, modern spy thriller sensibility that is still sprinkled with just enough Bond‑flavored absurdity. That includes the usual questionable physics and, of course, whatever murder‑sex‑wrestling hybrid defines Xenia Onatopp’s particular combat style. She’d make an interesting kumite participant.

(Todd here: In retrospect, I should have given Famke Janssen the Whit Bissell Award for the same reasons Alan Cumming earned his. She’s playing a strange, thankless, borderline cartoon character. Onattop is more caricature than role you can “live in”—but she delivers a perfectly unhinged performance and goes all-in on some objectively strange stuff (even for a Bond film) worth recognition. So, with the power vested in me, I’m giving her co‑credit.)

While GoldenEye may not top many lists of “Christmas movies,” we think this is the perfect time of year to revisit it.