“My dear girl, don't flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for King and country. You don't think it gave me any pleasure, do you?”

Thunderball, in which director Terence Young returns to the world of 007, is a bigger and badder version of James Bond than anyone expected in 1965 as confidence meets extravagance in Bond’s mission to take down the cool, calculating power of Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), one of the most memorable villains in the 1960s due to his commanding take on decadence and sadism.  Largo is not flamboyant, at all.  His brutality is of the icy kind and it works to create a most dangerous threat as Bond finds himself trapped in a swimming pool with live sharks at Largo’s Nassau estate, Palmyra.

With a longer running time and many large underwater sequences - helmed by first-class second-unit director Ricou Browning (of Creature from the Black Lagoon fame) - Thunderball is worth every minute as the absurd - Bond’s pre-credit fight sequence with “the widow” and then takes flight via jetpack - meets the damned brutality of adult credibility.

Even in its most extravagant moments, Young’s direction throughout Thunderball maintains a classical sense of composition and story logic — qualities that grounded early Bond films in a kind of punch and pulp sensibility.

Things are going to change after the release of Young’s film, and perhaps not for the best.  Want to see a great balancing act?  Just look at the striking restraint used in the seduction scenes with Domino (Claudine Auger) as Bond gives her both information and purpose in her strike against Emilio Largo, SPECTRE’s Number Two.  These scenes - careful to retain a European sensuality - are quite exquisite as they show Connery’s Bond in a way we haven’t seen before, bordering on empathetic.

Widescreen adventure is what Young is all about in Thunderball, switching up the Cold War setting in From Russia With Love to something a bit more cinematic, expressive, and larger-than-life . . . without launching its audience into space.  Ehem.  If you’re a fan of the Connery Bond era and have a good home-theater setup , then yes — the 4K edition of Thunderball is definitely a big thumbs up for the improved presentation, particularly in color and overall polish.

007: The Sean Connery James Bond 6-Film Collection Limited Edition SteelBook Box Set 4K

Home Video Distributor: Warner Bros.
Available on Blu-ray - June 10, 2025
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English SDH; French; German; Italian; Spanish; Dutch
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos; English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1; English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono; )French: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1; German: Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Discs: 4K Ultra HD
Region Encoding: 4K region-free

The evil SPECTRE organization hijacks a NATO plane and seizes two atomic warheads, each capable of killing millions of innocent people. As the world is held hostage, James Bond (Agent 007) follows a trail to tropical Nassau, where he meets Emilio Largo, a high-ranking agent of SPECTRE, and the stunning Domino. His mission leads him from a perilous jet-pack flight to a terrifying clash with Largo's killer sharks and builds to an epic battle on the ocean floor.

VIDEO

The brand-new 4K transfer of the original camera negatives for each of these films is monumentally beautiful.   Sony has outdone themselves.

Truly, the results are as incredible as you can expect.  Using state of the art technology, a new 8K 16-bit scan of the original Technicolor camera negative became the basis for the 4K UHD scan. In a word: perfection. I cannot use enough adjectives to express how flawlessly beautiful these films look in their native 4K scan. This is not hyperbole. Film grain is fine and intact and adds detail to the picture - the likes you have never seen. Colors, especially with the HDR enhancements, are deeper and punchier than they ever were before in the land of all things 007, without sacrificing their intended looks and atmosphere.

In fact, the overall detail and depth of these pictures cannot be overstated.  The 4K Blu-ray discs feature the DOLBY VISION HDR that dramatically expands the color palette and contrast range and uses dynamic metadata to automatically optimize the picture for every screen — frame by frame.

AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio are ideal for these releases.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• See below for details

Special Features:

• Commentaries featuring Director Terence Young, Editor Peter Hunt, Screenwriter John Hopkins and others
• The Incredible World of James Bond - Original 1965 NBC Television Special
• A Child's Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car - 1965 Ford Promotion Film
• On Location with Ken Adam
• Bill Suitor: The Rocket Man Movies
• Thunderball Boat Show Reel
• 1965 TV Commercials: 007 Raincoat, 007 Slacks, Action Pack Toys
• Exotic Locations
• The Making of Thunderball
• The Thunderball Phenomenon
• The Secret History of Thunderball
• Theatrical Archive:
• Get the Point
• What an Operator
• Two Biggest Bonds
• TV Broadcasts:
• Strikes Like Thunderball
• Look Up Look Down Look Out
• Two For One Bonds
• Bond Sale
• Thunderball and From Russia With Love Double Bill
• Radio Communications:
• Introduction
• The Biggest Bond of All
• See Sean Connery in Thunderball
• Here Comes Thunderball
• Look Up Look Down Look Out
• James Bond Does It Everywhere
• Sean Connery in Thunderball
• Here Comes the Biggest Bond of All
• One Motion Picture
• Thunderball and You Only Live Twice
• Sean Connery Is James Bond

	Movie
	Video
	Audio
	Extras
Composite Blu-ray Grade

MPAA Rating: approved.
Runtime: 130 mins
Director: Terence Young
Writer: Richard Maibaum; Johanna Harwood
Cast: Sean Connery; Claudine Auger; Adolfo Celi
Genre: Spy | Thriller
Tagline: FANTASTIC 'BOND' SALE
Memorable Movie Quote: "Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead."
Theatrical Distributor: Warner Bros.
Official Site:
Release Date: December 22, 1965
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: 
Synopsis: James Bond heads to the Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme.