Thunderball (film) listed at number 73. Thunderball (film) Thunderball is a 1965 British spy film and the fourth in the "James Bond" series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham. It was directed by Terence Young, with its screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins. The movie would have been the first of the Bond series if not for legal disputes over copyright issues. The film follows Bond's mission
O.K. Connery "flair and skill with which the Bond films are made. The script is labored, the direction slow and the acting is barely adequate." In Phil Hardy's book "Science Fiction" (1984), a review noted that "though it's stylishly mounted, the result is a routine Italian spy romp." In an interview in 1996, Lois Maxwell said that Sean Connery, when he learned that she would join the cast, got very angry and started screaming: "You have betrayed me!" and he forgave her when she saved Neil from a fool at the press conference. As a "James Bond rip-off", reaction to the film