Sean Connery didn't just play characters. He owned them. When you look at the full list of Sean Connery movies, it’s easy to get blinded by the tuxedo and the Walther PPK. People forget that before he was 007, he was a milkman in Edinburgh. He was a bodybuilder who placed third in a Mr. Universe contest. He was a guy who polished coffins to make ends meet.
Honestly, he shouldn't have been Bond. Ian Fleming initially thought he was too "unrefined." He called him an "overgrown stuntman." But once Connery stepped onto the screen in Dr. No (1962), the world stopped caring about what Fleming thought. He defined a generation of cool. Yet, if you stop at the spy stuff, you’re missing the actual grit of his career. He spent decades trying to kill off the ghost of James Bond by playing monks, mutineers, and crusty Irish cops.
The Bond Years and the Struggle to Break Free
Everyone knows the big ones. From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), and Thunderball (1965). These films didn't just make him a star; they made him a prisoner of his own image. By the time You Only Live Twice (1967) rolled around, Connery was done. He was bored. He hated the gadgets. He hated the "idiots" (a word he used a lot) in the production offices.
He actually quit. He walked away from the biggest franchise in history.
Of course, money talks. He came back for Diamonds Are Forever (1971) because the paycheck was record-breaking for the time, and he gave every penny of it to the Scottish International Education Trust. He even came back one last time in 1983 for the non-Eon produced Never Say Never Again, mostly just to prove he still could.
But look at what he was doing in between those Bond hits. That’s where the real acting happened. In 1964, he worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Marnie. He played a man obsessed with a woman who was a compulsive thief. It was dark. It was uncomfortable. It proved the "stuntman" could handle psychological complexity.
The list of Sean Connery movies you probably missed
If you want to understand Connery, you have to watch The Hill (1965). Directed by Sidney Lumet—who would become one of Connery’s most frequent collaborators—it’s a brutal, black-and-white look at a British military prison in North Africa. No gadgets. No girls. Just men breaking under the heat and the cruelty of their superiors. Connery is electric in it.
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He had this weird, wonderful middle period in the 70s where he just took big swings. Some worked, some... didn't.
- Zardoz (1974): You've probably seen the meme. Connery in a red loincloth and thigh-high boots. It’s a bizarre sci-fi trip that most people dismiss, but it shows his willingness to be absolutely ridiculous for the sake of a vision.
- The Man Who Would Be King (1975): This is arguably his best performance. Starring alongside his real-life friend Michael Caine, he plays an ex-soldier who cons his way into becoming a god in Kafiristan. It’s funny, tragic, and epic.
- Robin and Marian (1976): An aging Robin Hood returns from the Crusades to find a middle-aged Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn). It’s a quiet, heartbreaking deconstruction of a legend.
- The Wind and the Lion (1975): He plays a Berber brigand who kidnaps an American woman. It’s the kind of role that probably wouldn't be cast the same way today, but Connery’s charisma carries the whole film.
The 80s and the Oscar Comeback
For a while there, Connery was considered "box office poison." The hits dried up. He was getting older. Then 1986 happened.
He played William of Baskerville in The Name of the Rose. A medieval monk solving murders. He won a BAFTA for it. It reminded Hollywood that the guy with the accent (which he never, ever tried to hide, regardless of the character's nationality) was a heavyweight.
Then came The Untouchables (1987).
"He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."
As Jimmy Malone, the veteran Chicago beat cop, Connery finally got his Oscar. He was the soul of that movie. He made Kevin Costner better just by being in the same frame. It’s funny because Malone is supposed to be Irish-American, but Connery sounds exactly like a guy from Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. Nobody cared. The gravitas was too high to argue with.
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The Blockbuster Elder Statesman
The late 80s and 90s were basically Connery playing everyone's favorite father figure or mentor.
He was Henry Jones Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). The chemistry between him and Harrison Ford is the only reason that movie works as well as it does. They actually felt like father and son, despite Connery only being 12 years older than Ford in real life.
He gave us The Hunt for Red October (1990). Marko Ramius. A Soviet sub commander who just wants to defect and live in Montana. Again, the accent stayed Scottish. Again, we didn't care. He had this way of making you believe he was the smartest, most dangerous man in the room just by lowering his eyebrows.
Then there was The Rock (1996). Basically, it was Bond if Bond had been left in a basement for thirty years. He played John Mason, the only man to ever escape Alcatraz. It was a high-octane Michael Bay flick, but Connery brought a weirdly grounded dignity to it.
Why he finally walked away
The end of the list of Sean Connery movies is a bit of a sad story. It finishes with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
The production was a disaster. Floods in Prague destroyed the sets. He clashed constantly with the director, Stephen Norrington. Connery famously said the experience was "a nightmare" and that he was "fed up with dealing with idiots."
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He turned down the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings because he "didn't understand the script." He turned down The Matrix for the same reason. After the LXG debacle, he realized he didn't want to spend his final years fighting with people who didn't know how to make movies.
He retired to the Bahamas. He played golf. He stayed away from the cameras, save for a few voice-over roles (like Sir Billi in 2012).
How to actually watch his filmography
If you're going to dive into his work, don't just do a Bond marathon. You’ll get a distorted view of his talent. Start with the "Essential Three" that define his range:
- The Hill (1965): For the raw, unpolished acting.
- The Man Who Would Be King (1975): For the pure adventure and chemistry.
- The Untouchables (1987): For the definitive "mentor" performance.
The thing about the list of Sean Connery movies is that it's a map of a man who refused to be small. He came from nothing and became the definition of a movie star. He didn't change for Hollywood; he made Hollywood change for him. He kept his accent, he kept his hair (or lack thereof), and he kept his dignity.
Most actors spend their lives trying to be someone else. Sean Connery spent his life being Sean Connery, and we were lucky enough to watch.
Next Step: Pick one of the lesser-known 70s films mentioned above, like The Offence or The Molly Maguires, to see a version of Connery that the Bond franchise never allowed him to be.