You Only Live Twice
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.
Trailer
Director
Lewis Gilbert
Writer
Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Harold Jack Bloom
Studio
EON Productions, United Artists
Release
1967-06-13
Runtime
1h 57m
Genres
Action, Thriller, Adventure
Cast & Characters
James Bond
Sean Connery
Aki
Akiko Wakabayashi
Kissy Suzuki
Mie Hama
Tiger Tanaka
Tetsuro Tamba
Mr. Osato
Teru Shimada
Helga Brandt
Karin Dor
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Donald Pleasence
M
Bernard Lee
Did You Know?
Critical Assessment
You Only Live Twice holds 6.8/10 on IMDb (128K votes), 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 68% audience score.
Critics and audiences are broadly aligned on this one.
Ratings as of August 3, 2026
AI Verdict
AI-generatedYou Only Live Twice's 6.8 IMDb average and 73% Rotten Tomatoes score place it solidly mid-pack in the 60-plus-year Bond franchise.
Fan & Critic Buzz
Public reaction to "You Only Live Twice" is mixed, with some considering it iconic and entertaining, while others find it lacking compared to earlier Connery films. Some viewers appreciate the Japanese setting and Connery's charisma, but feel that something was missing. The film has been criticized for its portrayal of Japan and its handling of SPECTRE.
Reviews
_**James goes to Japan**_ "You Only Live Twice" (1967) takes agent 007 to Japan where he seeks the secret SPECTRE installation responsible for literally stealing space capsules and threatening war between the USA and USSR. This 5th installment in the franchise upped the ante with…
Wuchak · 8/10Yeah... forgotten isn't it? Maybe it's forgotten because they try and turn Sean Connery into a Japanese man to hide him and he just ends up looking like a harry chested Leonard Nimoy. Or maybe it's forgotten because little choppers are more Roger Moore than Sean Connery. Whatever…
GenerationofSwine · 3/10This is in the hay day of 007 films. Made when 007 was exciting and entertaining. That gets a lot of hate from people with Generation Xenophobe ideology. But it's totally exciting. Here, we get almost all the venues. We even get outer space. We get super beautiful scenery that pr…
drystyx · 9/10This time, "007" (Sean Connery) has to investigate some mysterious goings on in outer space as first an American, then a Soviet rocket disappear. Naturally, they blame one another but "M" (Bernard Lee) has an inkling that Japan might be the source of the mischief and so our suave…
CinemaSerf · 7/10An improvement over Thunderball but still not as good as the original 3 Connery films, it is still very iconic despite it only just having a reappraisal.
tmdb93836550 · 8/10Entertaining but not as good as the previous entries. I did like the Japanese setting and Connery of course is charismatic, not to mention Mie Hamma in a bikini was beautiful, but there was something missing. I also thought Donald Pleasance wasn't nearly as threatening as Blofeld…
JPV852 · 7/10
