If I had to pick
one Bond actor, it would be Connery.
Why?
He played Bond in
Goldfinger - the best Bond movie ever. And then there's
Diamonds Are Forever - my personal favourite.
I mainly associate Bond with Connery. Period.
Sean Connery
But I also have much love for Moore. He's witty, he's naughty, and still looks and acts like a fine British gentleman. I like him best in
The Spy Who Loved Me and
For Your Eyes Only, two excellent flicks. He and his one-liners turned the series into real action-comedies, with the stress on comedy - which I liked very much!
Roger Moore
Dalton is an excellent actor. His tough and sarky Bond was totally different from Connery and Moore. In fact, he anticipated quite a bit the role of Craig, but with one huge difference. Let me repeat and specify what I alread said: Dalton is an excellent actor - while Craig is not. Dalton on his very personal vendetta in
Licence To Kill emotionally affects me - Craig's portrayal of an ice-cold monster does not.
Timothy Dalton
Brosnan (who comes in fourth) is first and foremost a beau - but he's also a quite charismatic Bond, at least in the superb
GoldenEye. But he had bad luck: all of his movies after the latter one at least partly sucked, with
Tomorrow Never Dies being one of the weakest Bonds ever.
Lazenby (position five) fulfilled the task. He's not as bad as many people say - but his performance is quite wooden and not very memorable. I'm happy he only starred in one (overly long) Bond.
Craig (finishing last) is a very mediocre actor, and a total miscast for the character of James Bond - at least for my taste. He's stone-cold, uncharismatic, and has none of Bond's typical character traits (which is partly due to the style of the two movies he starred in).
Greetings!
PS. I haven't read any of Fleming's novels, so I cannot comment on how close any of the actors comes to the original Bond created by Fleming. But this would be a discussion more suitable for the other Bond thread anyhow.