Film Posters: The Man with the Golden Gun and No Time to Die
This lesson studies two James Bond film posters set by the exam board for Section A: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and No Time to Die (2021). In the exam you may be given a copy of either poster and asked to analyse its media language, explain its context, or compare it with an unseen poster in the same form — so you need to know exactly what is on each poster and why.
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974): What’s on the Poster?
The Man with the Golden Gun is a James Bond film released on 19 December 1974, starring Roger Moore as 007 in his second outing as the character after Live and Let Die. It was based on Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name, produced by the British company Eon Productions and distributed by United Artists on an estimated budget of $7 million — it went on to gross over $97 million worldwide.
The poster’s dominant image is a mid-shot of Bond, smartly dressed and holding a gun across his body. His denotation as the largest figure signals he is the protagonist — in Vladimir Propp’s narrative theory, the ‘hero’. His business suit carries the connotation of professionalism, while the gun signifies danger and action. Roger Moore’s name is placed directly above his image, reinforcing the actor-character link; Moore was already a household name from the TV series The Saint and the previous Bond film.
In the foreground, an extreme close-up shows a golden gun pointed at Bond, being loaded with a bullet engraved with his name. We only see the shooter’s hand, which creates an enigma code: the audience wants to know who is trying to kill him. Following Propp’s narrative theory, this hidden assassin is the ‘villain’. The gun’s gold colour connotes wealth and status.
Three women surround Bond. Two are bikini-clad with slim, hourglass figures, heavy make-up and long flowing hair — a highly sexualised representation that a feminist perspective would argue reduces them to bodies to be looked at. The third wears a karate uniform in a martial arts pose; her darker skin tone marks her as a different ethnic group, presented as exotic and ‘other’ rather than conforming to the sexualised stereotype of the other two. Surrounding these figures are enemies, explosions and a power plant in the lower-left corner — codes signifying the action/thriller genre and referencing the real 1973 global oil crisis, when Arab oil-producing nations imposed an embargo that triggered lasting political and economic effects.
The Man with the Golden Gun poster (1974) uses Bond’s dominant mid-shot, the golden gun enigma code and the power plant imagery to build genre and narrative meaning — while its three female figures show both sexualised stereotyping and, in the karate-clad woman, a racialised ‘otherness’.
No Time to Die (2021): What’s on the Poster?
No Time to Die was released in the UK on 30 September 2021, after a global premiere at the Royal Albert Hall on 28 September — this was Daniel Craig’s fifth and final performance as Bond. Its release was delayed from April 2020 following a change of director and the COVID-19 pandemic. Produced again by Eon Productions, it had an estimated budget of $250–301 million, making it the most expensive Bond film to date, and it grossed over $774 million worldwide. The poster was designed by Empire Designs; the first teaser version appeared on James Bond Day, 5 October 2019, and the title logo uses the typeface Futura Black.
The poster uses an intertextuality montage design, layering separate images to reference earlier Bond films and create nostalgia for fans; the iconic 007 gun logo is itself an intertextual link across the whole franchise. Unlike the 1974 poster, there is no credit for Ian Fleming, signalling this story is not based on one of his novels. The large 007 logo uses a worn, aged blue that ties together the blue tones of the Bar El Nido, the villain’s suit and Paloma’s glamorous evening dress, while the smaller 007 logo and title use gold, connoting the luxury and exclusivity associated with the Bond brand.
Bond appears three times, always connoting skill and control, but his thoughtful, care-worn expression reflects a more contemporary, vulnerable masculinity — and, unusually for the franchise, he is not shown holding a weapon. Nomi (Lashana Lynch), the new 00 agent, wears military costume and an earpiece with a calm, focused expression, connoting an active agent in control. Paloma (Ana de Armas), by contrast, wears a glamorous navy-blue evening dress cut to the waist — a look historically typical of the franchise’s ‘Bond Girls’. Villain Safin (Rami Malek), Q (Ben Whishaw) and Swann (Léa Seydoux) all look directly at the camera, a mode of address that gives the poster a more personal feel.
A separate villain, pictured in a parka jacket and wearing a Japanese Noh mask (used in Japanese theatre for ghostly or demonic characters), carries a gun and conceals his identity, creating an enigma code — while Safin himself is shown unmasked, looking directly at the audience. The film’s title is ambiguous: it could suggest Bond is too active even to have time to die, hinting at a fast-paced film, or that it is simply ‘a bad time to die’, hinting at a more sombre tone and significant deaths in the narrative.
Lashana Lynch, a British Jamaican actor, became the first Black woman to carry the 007 title in the franchise’s history. On being cast, she said: “We [Black women] know how it feels to be mis- and underrepresented and we know how it feels to yearn for someone, anyone in the world to speak our truth for us when we feel like we don’t have a voice.”
On both posters, Bond is Propp’s ‘hero’ through his dominant mid-shot placement, smart dress and calm control. The ‘villain’ role differs in how it is hidden: on The Man with the Golden Gun, only the assassin’s hand is shown loading the golden gun; on No Time to Die, a masked villain in a parka jacket wears a Japanese Noh mask that conceals his face (Safin, by contrast, looks straight at the audience). Both techniques create an enigma code, making audiences want to discover the villain’s identity before or during the film.
Genre signifiers also repeat across nearly 50 years: both posters use guns, action imagery and multiple characters to establish the action/thriller genre instantly, even though the golden gun in 1974 is a foregrounded prop and the 2021 guns are ‘casually pointed’ rather than in active use.
In 1974, two of the three female figures are purely decorative — bikini-clad, hourglass-shaped ‘Bond Girls’ whose only narrative function is to flank Bond. By 2021, Nomi is given agency through her military costume, earpiece and calm control, reflecting a shift toward representing women as active characters rather than purely decorative ones.
Yet the shift is only partial. Paloma’s glamorous, revealing dress on the No Time to Die poster still echoes the traditional ‘Bond Girl’ look of 1974, showing that even a poster made nearly 50 years later has not fully abandoned earlier stereotypes.
Contexts of Production: Comparing 1974 and 2021
Context shapes both posters. The Man with the Golden Gun reflects the 1973 oil crisis through its power plant imagery and was filmed partly in Hong Kong, Thailand and Macau to capitalise on the era’s martial arts film boom, associated with stars such as Bruce Lee. No Time to Die reflects a different set of contexts: the 2016 #OscarsSoWhite campaign and the 2020 killing of George Floyd, both of which pushed Hollywood to reconsider its representation of race, and a wider cultural expectation — following decades of feminist critique — that female characters be given more narrative agency than earlier ‘Bond Girls’.
Budgets and box office reveal the industry’s growth: The Man with the Golden Gun cost around $7 million and grossed over $97 million; No Time to Die cost an estimated $250–301 million (the most expensive Bond film to date) and grossed over $774 million worldwide.