The greatest James Bond theme song of all time revealed – by the fans themselves

It's fair to say that James Bond has boasted some stellar theme tunes in the years since 007 was first seen on the big screen in 1962 – with Shirley Bassey, Duran Duran and Adele just some of the iconic artists who have put their musical stamp on the series.

But which song is the greatest of them all? That was a question RadioTimes.com put to Bond fans back in 2023, when we ran a Twitter poll tournament to determine the best ever Bond theme, split into several rounds before a grand final.

In the end it was Live and Let Die which was voted as the best of the bunch. The song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney and recorded by their band Wings as the theme for the 1973 film of the same name, which was the first to star Roger Moore as the iconic spy.

It beat another song from Moore's tenure in the final round of voting, with Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better from the 1977 flick The Spy Who Loved Me coming in second place with 32.8 per cent of the vote, compared to 67.2 per cent for Live and Let Die.

Several other classic Bond anthems exited the tournament at the Semi-Final stage, with Shirley Bassey's Diamonds Are Forever, Nancy Sinatra's You Only Live Twice, Adele's Skyfall, and Duran Duran's A View to a Kill all missing out on a place in the final.

Perhaps surprisingly, Bassey's Goldfinger theme had fallen in the previous round – although it did have the misfortunate of coming up against eventual winner Live and Let Die at that stage.

Still, Goldfinger's absence from the final did not go down well with some voters, with one Twitter user writing: "This is nonsense. Goldfinger is by far the best. Anyone not voting this way is just wrong."

In total, 24 theme songs were included in the poll, with Louis Armstrong's We Have All the Time in the World from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Tom Jones's Thunderball and Billie Eilish's No Time to Die among those not to make it to the semi-final stage.

No Time to Die is available to stream on Prime Video.

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