<P> James Bond is a fictional character created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1953 . Bond is a British secret agent working for MI6 who also answers by his codename, 007 . He has been portrayed on film by actors Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, in twenty - six productions . Only two films were not made by Eon Productions . Eon now holds the full adaptation rights to all of Fleming's Bond novels . </P> <P> In 1961 producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman joined forces to purchase the filming rights to Fleming's novels . They founded the production company Eon Productions and, with financial backing by United Artists, began working on Dr. No, which was directed by Terence Young and featured Connery as Bond . Following Dr. No's release in 1962, Broccoli and Saltzman created the holding company Danjaq to ensure future productions in the James Bond film series . The series currently encompasses twenty - four films, with the most recent, Spectre, released in October 2015 . With a combined gross of nearly $7 billion to date, the films produced by Eon constitute the Fourth - highest - grossing film series, behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and Wizarding World films . Accounting for the effects of inflation the Bond films have amassed over $14 billion at current prices . The films have won five Academy Awards: for Sound Effects (now Sound Editing) in Goldfinger (at the 37th Awards), to John Stears for Visual Effects in Thunderball (at the 38th Awards), to Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Sound Editing, and to Adele and Paul Epworth for Original Song in Skyfall (at the 85th Awards), and to Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes for Original Song in Spectre (at the 88th Awards). Additionally, several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" and Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only". In 1982, Albert R. Broccoli received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award . </P>

How many james bond movies have been filmed in total