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M: You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts.
Bond: The thought had occurred to me.
M: Good. Because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur; a relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to the young woman I sent out to evaluate you.
Bond: Point taken.
M: Not quite, 007. If you think for one moment I don't have the balls to send a man out to die, your instincts are dead wrong. I've no compunction about sending you to your death. But I won't do it on a whim. Even with your cavalier attitude towards life.

The One With… the tank chase... and the really good N64 game.

GoldenEye is the seventeenth Eon Productions James Bond film, released in late 1995. It's the first to be released after a six-year hiatus following Licence to Kill, the first set mostly in Russia and Cuba, the first made in The '90s, the first to be directed by Martin Campbell, the first to mention Bond's dead parents (who were revisited in the later Craig films), and the first to star Pierce Brosnan. Tina Turner performed the title theme, which was written by Bono and The Edge.

The film opens in 1986: Bond and his partner, Alec Trevelyan a.k.a. 006 (Sean Bean), are dropped into Arkhangelsk to take out an illicit weapons depot, but things get sticky when an alarm is tripped, and Trevelyan is seemingly executed by the ruthless Colonel Arkady Ourumov (Gottfried John). Bond still manages to destroy the depot and escapes.

Cut to the present day, where the Cold War has ended, the Soviet Union is no more and spies have traded in their Walther PPKs for pocket protectors, and MI6 is being retrofitted for the 21st century — with a bureaucracy to match. Even MI6's leader, "M" (Dame Judi Dench), has changed. Bond is sent to investigate the reactivation of an old Soviet space weapon, the titular GoldenEye, which has fallen into the hands of some wily ex-Soviets—or it appears.

The Bond Girls for this go-round include Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), a Russian programmer who knows more about the theft of GoldenEye than is healthy, and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), a former fighter pilot and current sadist who destroys men's ribs between her thighs.

A quick note on the origin of the title: it's named after Fleming's house in Jamaica, Goldeneye, which was in turn named after Ian Fleming's (who was at the time in British Naval Intelligence) plan for maintaining control of Gibraltar in the event that Francisco Franco's Spain entered World War II on the side of Nazi Germany, which in turn was named after Carson McCullers' novel Reflections in a Golden Eye. Bonus confusion: the fiction film GoldenEye should not be confused with the documentary film Golden Eye, which is about the aforementioned house in Jamaica. Especially not if you're a British newspaper giving away the latter on DVD bundled with the paper itself, and supporting said offer with a TV advertising campaign. Looking at you, Daily Mail.

For the mega-hit Nintendo 64 game adaptation, see here. For that game's remake, see here. For the arcade pinball game from Sega, see here. Despite the name, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is not directly based on this film.

Preceded by Licence to Kill and followed by Tomorrow Never Dies.


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This film contains examples of:

     Tropes A-M 
  • '80s Hair: Brosnan kept his bouffant Remington Steele hairdo (albeit toned down a little) for his first outing as James Bond. This was done on purpose to appeal to Brosnan's fans from the show.
  • Activation Sequence: There's an elaborate sequence in which a lake in Cuba is drained to reveal that its entire basin is a satellite dish. Three structures that border the now-dry lake extend to towering heights to deploy the antenna array, with which the baddies intend to transmit the "fire" command to an EMP satellite. Fortunately, Bond is on hand to screw up the device before the command is relayed.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Q can't help but laugh at Bond's "writing's on the wall" joke. Boris is also amused when Bond belittles Janus's scheme (and Janus likewise can't help smiling when Natalya starts beating the shit out of Boris).
  • Air-Vent Passageway:
    • Bond infiltrates the Arkangel facility through an air vent dropping into a toilet stall.
      Bond: Beg your pardon, I forgot to knock.
    • Subverted later in the film when Xenia, at the Severnaya facility, shoots the vent when she sees that the cover has been pushed out of place, but Natalya is hiding in the cupboard.
  • The Alleged Car: Jack Wade's Zaporozhets. He starts it by rapping the engine with a sledgehammer, a semi-legitimate technique for fixing a real-life model.
  • All for Nothing: Boris breaks Natalya's codes, but has no answer to Bond's concurrent physical sabotage of the Evil Lair's antenna, which prevents any countermanding order being transmitted to the GoldenEye satellite.
  • All There in the Script: In the script, M's real name is Barbara Mawdsley.
  • Always Save the Girl: There is a double subversion in the train scene. Trevelyan holds Natalya at gunpoint, and Bond simply says to shoot her because "she means nothing to me." He calls Bond's bluff, allowing Ouromov to die as he and Xenia escape.
  • Anachronism Stew: The Omega watch on Bond's arm in the 1986 opening sequence was commercialized in 1993.
  • And Starring: Judi Dench received the "And [her name] as M" billing.
  • And This Is for...:
    • M warns Bond against employing this trope when she sends him on a mission where he is sure to cross paths with the man who presumably murdered Trevelyan in the film's prologue. "Avenging Alec Trevelyan will not bring him back."
    • A more subtle version as Bond faces off with former friend Alec Trevelyan. Earlier in the film Alec had referenced a small tradition they shared during a dangerous mission: "For England, James?" "For England, Alec." As Alec is about to die, he says again, "For England, James?" Bond responds, "No. For me."
  • Anti-Climax Boss: In-Universe Ourumov, despite being Co-Dragons with Xenia and a major villain in the story, just gets unceremoniously shot in the head at one point and dies instantly.
  • Anti-Love Song: The theme song is from the point of view of a woman who's planning to get revenge on her former lover.
  • Anti-Villain: Ultimately subverted. Trevelyan claims to have set his scheme in motion for the British government's post-war betrayal of the Lienz Cossacks, suggesting some element of nobility to his actions, but the grand-scale act of robbery he's carrying out alongside causes Bond to brand him as litle more than a thief; this seems to aggravate Trevelyan a little too much for it to be inaccurate.
  • Arc Words: "For England, James."
  • Arms Dealer:
    • Both Valentin Zukovsky and the Janus syndicate are said to be involved in the arms trade, among various other criminal enterprises.
    • A deleted scene shows Zukovsky meeting with an international arms dealer. Hilariously, Zukovsky knows enough about guns to know that all of the dealer's wares are "counterfeit crap".
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A quip by Q after Bond compliments his latest car, the BMW Z3.
    Bond: Excellent! Just the thing for unwinding after a rough day at the office.
    Q: Need I remind you, 007, that you have a licence to kill, not to break the traffic laws.
    Bond: I wouldn't think of it.
    Q: Good.
  • Artistic License – Economics: Trevelyan's plan seems to rely on having no idea how economics works.
    • First of all, even in 1995, the Bank of England kept records of its transactions in Manchester. Meaning using the Goldeneye satellite to destroy all computers in London would not have erased every record of the theft.
    • Secondly, if Trevelyan intended on becoming rich off this venture like he claimed, he would be better off not destroying England's economy in the first place. As doing so would tank England's GDP to zero, rendering the value of all the money he stole worthless.
  • Artistic Licence – Gun Safety: Ouromov shoots Defence Minister Mishkin and a guard with Bond's gun. He then removes the magazine and gives it back to Bond, without clearing the chamber. Bond could've easily shot Ouromov with the remaining bullet and killed him.
  • Artistic License – History: The KGB is mentioned a few times in present tense. In reality the KGB had been dissolved four years prior in December 1991 (shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union) and fractured into various smaller successor agencies; at the time primarily the SVR (foreign intelligence) and the FSK (domestic intelligence, replaced by the more powerful FSB later that year).
  • Artistic Licence – Military: Bond is showing driving the tank from the right-hand side. In reality, the T-54/55's driver's compartment is on the left-hand side. The reason for this change was to allow it to appear that Bond was driving the tank with his head out, while someone else was actually driving it, therefore not needing to teach Pierce Brosnan or his stunt double how to actually drive a tank.
  • Artistic License – Physics: The Goldeneye site commander gives the satellite's altitude as 100 km. That is much too low for an orbit; atmospheric drag would bring it down in fairly short order. 150 km is about as low as a satellite can dip (at perigee).
  • The Atoner: Trevelyan asks Bond, "...if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect," which indicates that Bond is always trying to make up for his past mistakes.
  • Attempted Rape: Xenia Onatopp tries to do this twice to Bond, although he eventually overpowers her and brushes it off with typical flippancy both times.
    Xenia: Yes! Yes! Yes!
    Bond: [after overpowering her and holding her at gunpoint] No, no, no. No more foreplay. Take me to Janus.
  • Auto Erotica: Bond seduces his evaluator after a car chase in his Aston Martin DB5. He even has champagne and glasses stashed in the centre console to help things along.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • Between M and 007. Despite delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Bond and even saying she has no problem sending him to his death as long as it was worthwhile, M's farewell to him is:
      M: Bond? [Bond turns around to look at her, and M tries to hide a smile] Come back alive.
      Bond: [smiles warmly at her]
    • She also makes a point of reminding him that Alec Trevelyan's death was not his fault.
    • Likewise, Q and Bond share a chuckle during the exploding pen demonstration.
  • Ax-Crazy: Xenia Onatopp is a Psycho for Hire for the Janus Syndicate who actually derives sexual pleasure from the act of killing. Her favourite murder method is asphyxiating men between her Murderous Thighs while having sex, and she practically orgasms when gunning down unarmed technicians at the Severnaya facility. It even bothers Ourumov, who is not known for his squeamishness.
  • Badass Boast: Both Bond and Zukovsky, at different times.
    Bond: I gave him the limp!
    Zukovsky: ...and I believe I've killed two of them.
  • Bad Boss: Colonel Ourumov has no qualms about executing his own men if they slip up, as seen during the standoff with Bond in the chemical plant. Then of course, there's his later treachery...
  • Bad Guy Bar: Bond finds Zukovsky in a bar like this.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: In a roundabout way. The first onscreen kill is an unarmed scientist, executed in cold blood by Trevelyan. Bond might have done the same, and indeed offered no commentary or protest, but it's nonetheless an early, visceral indicator of 006's casual ruthlessness. Sure enough, he's the Big Bad.
  • Ballistic Discount: Subverted in a deleted scene. Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky is meeting with a sketchy Indian arms dealer to discuss business. He examines a few weapons, but quickly discerns that they're Chinese counterfeit. He demonstrates this by taking a Glock, a weapon he greatly admires, pointing it at the dealer's head and pulling the trigger. Nothing happens because the Chinese manufacturers made the firing pin too short. He just has the guy thrown out of his club and warns him not to return.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Much is made of General Ourumov as a Soviet hardliner, and the movie initially implies that he's going to be the Big Bad, complete with an old grudge that Bond has to settle thanks to shooting 006 in the Bond Cold Open and, probably, some kind of plot to restore the old Soviet Union. All of which is inverted; he's actually sold out his old ideals to join the Janus organisation, and is merely one of his henchmen. Even his shooting of 006 was a lie.
  • Bank Robbery: The villains' plot is essentially a massive, countrywide electronic bank heist covered up by the use of a stolen EMP warhead. Bond even lampshades it toward the end.
    Bond: In the end, you're just a bank robber. Nothing more than a common thief.
  • Base on Wheels: Janus' missile train, which while not that big, makes up for it in armour, length and sheer implausibly over-the-top goodness. Since the train was filmed in the UK and is a converted BR one, it's actually slightly too narrow due to a wider gauge of railway in the former USSR.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill:
    • Played with when Ouromov steals the GoldenEye keys. He does actually have the authority to access them, as Bond notes later, but bluffs his way around his obviously unsanctioned visit by pretending it's a surprise inspection, getting the base commander to happily turn over the keys as part of the test.
    • Natalya pretends to be a teacher at an IBM showroom and blags her way into getting a private room with a test model of a new IBM computer, complete with a modem — which she then uses to contact Boris.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
    • Natalya narrowly avoids being blown up by a Kill Sat, traverses Siberia on a dogsled, gets held hostage in a stolen helicopter, survives a shootout, a car chase through St. Petersburg, a train crash, and a bomb blast on that train. She never gets a hair out of place and her make-up remains pristine.
    • As the half-naked Bond and Xenia wrestle in the sauna, he gets the upper hand, draws his gun, and demands that she take him to the as-yet unseen villain. When they arrive at the villain's headquarters, she's dishevelled, as one would expect as she had to hurriedly dress at gunpoint. Bond, however, is as impeccably dressed as ever, which he somehow managed despite holding a gun on her.
  • Behind the Black: Bond and Natalya are lying in a field having a romantic interlude with nobody around "within 25 miles". Then a squad of marines pops up, forgivable because they are camouflaged... then a group of helicopters appears. They were completely silent and apparently invisible until they were within frame.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Bond and Natalya. Justified in that she's been running for her life and has no idea who to trust. After he saves her from the helicopter, helps her fight their way through the archive, rescues her from Trevelyan, and gets them out of an exploding train, she's a lot more receptive to him.
  • Berserk Button: Boris makes an attempt to crack Natalya's access codes, but quickly blows up from the pressure he's under.
    Boris: GIVE ME THE CODES NATALYA!!! GIVE THEM TO ME!
    • Doesn't help that moments after he screams that, Bond kicks his pen grenade Boris was holding out of his hand moments before it blew, leaving Boris left with a shell-shocked Oh, Crap! look at what nearly happened to him.
  • Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: After being outed as a traitor to the Russian Defence Minister, Ourumov takes out Bond's gun and shoots the Defence Minister dead along with the guard, leaving only Ourumov and Bond as witnesses to the scene. He then empties the gun and throws it to Bond, while reciting the story he's going to say. In this case, Bond intentionally catches the gun out of the air and pockets it, knowing full well that it wouldn't matter if he didn't touch it, as it's his gun and the Russians know that. Bond manages to get away before Ourumov can finish his gambit and shoot him for "killing the minister".
  • Big Bad Friend: Alec Trevelyan aka Janus, who once was James's partner and best friend as well as Agent 006, but after faking his death becomes the Big Bad of the movie.
  • The Big Board: The Severnaya station has one, used to track the orbit of the titular satellite (well, satellites - keen observers will note two orbits being tracked) and time left before it fires onto the station itself. The board is repeated in Janus' replicated base in Cuba.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Xenia. At first she seems to be a good natured thrill seeker not unlike Bond himself. It isn't long before she is revealed (to the audience at least) as the sadistic tyrant she is.
  • Black Helicopter: The Tiger, a super-helicopter, immune to EMP effects, is hijacked and promptly used to steal the GoldenEye.
  • Blasphemous Boast: In a minor example, Trevelyan tells Ouromov "...in 48 hours, you and I will have more money than God."
  • Blatant Lies:
    • M tells Bond that the official reason for the Servanya incident is an accident during a routine training exercise. Neither of them buy it.
    Bond: Governments change, the lies stay the same.
    • Bond telling Alec, "Kill her. She means nothing to me." If Bond truly didn't care about Natalya, he wouldn't have asked, "Where is she?" earlier. It's also clear throughout the scene that Trevelyan is very confident that Bond will try to save Natalya first.
    • Bond introduces Natalya to Jack Wade as the "Russian Minister of Transportation".
  • Bloodless Carnage: Most notably when Bond shoots all those guards in the Russian prison.
  • Bondage Is Bad: Xenia Onatopp is really into S&M. And crushing men's chests with her thighs.
  • Bond One-Liner:
    • With Xenia's death, Bond quips to Natalya, "She always did enjoy a good squeeze."
    • Earlier, at the Severnaya massacre, Xenia tries for this — "I had to ventilate someone." Unfortunately for her and Ourumov, Natalya wasn't actually hiding in the ventilation shaft.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: This is a Bond movie after all.
    • Ouromov has Bond at his mercy in the interrogation room and decides to gloat to Bond about his alternate scheme to frame Bond for Mishkin's murder and then shoot him. Not as bad as other examples from the series, as he's obviously thinking on his feet, and it was only going to take Ouromov another second to kill Bond... but that's more than enough time for Bond to turn the tables.
    • Alec escapes in a helicopter when the train car crashes, leaving Bond and Natalya behind and trapped. He calls Bond over the radio to taunt him about the bomb and tells him that he is going to give him "the same six minutes that you gave me." Not only does Bond now know about the bomb, but gloating over the six minutes also alerts Bond to the fact that the bomb actually has three minutes on the timer instead of six since it signifies how Bond detonated a bomb much earlier in his past mission with Alec.
    • When Bond and Natalya are searching for Janus' base in Cuba, he shoots down their small civilian airplane with an STA missile; a missile fired from the middle of a lake that the heroes had no reason to assume was hiding the bad guy's base. If Janus had just kept quiet, Bond never would've found the base in time to foil Janus' plan. Granted, Janus needed to drain the lake for the antenna to signal the GoldenEye satellite, but even then he should've let Bond fly off first since by the time Bond landed and made his way back on foot, he would've been too late to stop Janus.
    • Bond is captured by Trevelyan's henchman in Cuba, and Trevelyan insists on talking to him rather than just killing him. However, a few minutes later when Natalya is captured, it's revealed that she reprogrammed the GoldenEye satellite to descend and burn up in the atmosphere. Trevelyan then holds Bond at gunpoint to make her fix it.
    • The worst case is during the climax, where Trevelyan manages to start overpowering Bond during their final showdown and succeeds in grabbing Bond's gun, training it over him. Instead of just firing immediately, Trevelyan holds it on him for several seconds and then starts to smirk as he begins to gloat, which gives Bond the chance to notice that he's directly over the antenna platform and kick the ladder to it out, sliding down it to the platform while Trevelyan wastes the gun's remaining ammo trying to shoot at the space Bond had previously just been standing at.
  • Booby Trap: One of the gadgets being tested at Q Branch is a phone booth rigged with a giant airbag, which traps its occupants against the glass when inflated. Amusingly, it's a British Telecom booth.
  • Bookshelf Dominoes: Bond and Natalya push over a row of bookshelves to block a door.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Ourumov seems fond of these, delivering a faked one to Trevelyan at the chemical facility and later a much more lethal one to Mishkin when the Minister realizes his treachery.
  • Boring Insult:
    • Bond uses this on Trevelyan to describe Trevelyan's scheme. What makes this especially hilarious is the look Boris gives Trevelyan following the exchange.
      Bond: You break into the Bank of England via computer, then transfer the money electronically, seconds before you set off the GoldenEye, which erases any record of the transactions. Ingenious.
      Trevelyan: Thank you, James.
      Bond: But it still boils down to petty theft. In the end, you're just a bank robber. Nothing more than a common thief.
    • Alec smugly points out that it's a lot more than banks; the GoldenEye will wipe out all of the UK's records, effectively annihilating the country that betrayed his parents. Though Bond still get the jab in by pointing out that even if the crime itself turns out to be more grandiose than he thought, the underlying motivations are still petty:
      Trevelyan: You always did have a small mind, James. It’s not just erasing bank records, it’s everything on every computer in Greater London. Tax records. Stock market. Credit ratings. Land registries. Criminal records. In sixteen minutes and 43... 42 seconds, the United Kingdom will re-enter the Stone Age.
      Bond: A world-wide financial meltdown. And all so mad little Alec can settle a score with the world, 50 years old.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Exactly how long is Xenia standing there machine gunning the programmers on a single magazine? How long can Bond fire an AK-74 before reloading?
    • Played Straight earlier in the movie with Bond and the assault rifle, though they attempted to mask this by having him toss away his guns and grab new ones from bad guys rather than actually reload.
    • Averted during the final battle. Alec and Bond each have an AK-74 and each fire a few seconds of full-auto fire at the other before their guns are out of ammo. They then discard their rifles as they have no replacement magazines. Alec fires off 9-10 shots from his sidearm at James and pauses to reload a fresh clip before following him. Oddly, although only 3 shots are then fired from the weapon, when Alec then tries to shoot James, his gun locks empty.
  • Bowdlerise: A small amount of content, mostly fight footage, was cut so the film could be released in British cinemas with a 12 rather than a 15 following the lackluster commercial success of the 15-rated Licence to Kill - an uncut DVD edition was later released.
  • Breaking Speech: Trevelyan often tries to demoralize Bond by pointing out his body count or his many dead lovers.
    Alec: Oh please, James, spare me the Freud! I might as well ask if all the vodka martinis ever silence the screams of the men you've killed. Or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women... for all the dead ones you failed to protect.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Xenia and Bond make back and forth quips in their encounters about the "pleasure being all theirs"—first after their meeting at the casino, where Bond says it; next after the sauna, in which it's more cynically given to Bond by Xenia; and finally in the jungles of Cuba, where she beats on Bond and pretty much demands that the pleasure will be all hers.
    • And Boris' Catchphrase "YES! I AM INVINCIBLE!", which he deploys toward the film's end after declaring it earlier on. Until he's hit with liquid nitrogen.
  • Bring Him to Me: Bond, having been captured, is brought into the control room. Just to make sure nothing can go wrong, this room also contains copious supplies of aviation fuel and supercooled liquids.
  • Broken Pedestal: Bond's reaction changes from admiration to shock and contempt once he realizes not only is Trevelyan alive, but has become a Rogue Agent who wants to ruin England's economy by using the GoldenEye for an old grudge he's been harbouring for many years.
  • Brutal Brawl: Bond has a hard-hitting fight at the climax with Big Bad Alec Trevelyan. No gadgets, tricks, or even background music, just the two of them bashing and smashing each other around an engine room.
  • Call-Back:
    • To the film that started it all, Dr. No. Early in the film, James Bond begins playing baccarat with Xenia and stating his signature, "Bond. James Bond."
    • Boris' situation at the end mirrors Natalya's one earlier, as he survives a destruction of a satellite control station and ends up in something cold.
    • Alec's situation in the end also mirror's Natalya's, as she nearly got crushed under a falling ceiling fixture which stopped at the last second. The one falling on Alec didn't.
    • When Bond first encounters a still living Trevelyan, Bond says "Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?", to which Trevelyan responds "No, I expect you to die for me" in reference to the classic "Do you expect me to talk?" from Goldfinger.
  • Camping a Crapper: Bond sucker-punches a guard who was using the toilet ("Beg your pardon. Forgot to knock").
  • The Can Kicked Him: The movie opens up with Bond entering a bathroom stall via the ducts and taking out a guard who's using it.
  • Can't Bathe Without a Weapon: Invoked during the sauna scene. Xenia attacks Bond while while he's having a leisurely swim at his hotel. He retrieves his gun from alongside his towel once out of the pool, and sets it down when Xenia begins to kiss him. Conveniently, it disappears when Onatopp starts crushing the life out of him, presumably as not to ruin the tension and provide a too-easy ending to the fight—although Bond curiously retrieves it from the same spot he set it down on earlier at the scene's end.
  • Captain Crash: Natalya is utterly convinced that Bond destroys every vehicle that he gets into; she's not entirely wrong. He drives a motorcycle off a cliff into a nosediving plane and barely straightens it in time; he barely manages to eject out of a helicopter before its own missiles destroy it; he wrecks a huge portion of St. Petersburg in a tank by ramming right through buildings; he derails an armoured train by firing a tank shell at it, and then uses the tank as a roadblock; he barely escapes the booby-trapped train before it blows up; then, in Cuba, the plane he's flying gets shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
  • Car Fu: "Use ze bumper! Zhat's vhat it's for!" And Bond uses a tank to flatten police cars, plow through a truck with cans of Perrier, use it as a battering ram to careen through military jeeps, and slam through walls to barrel his way through St.Petersburg. What tops the Chase Scene though, is not only does the tank smash through the pedestal of a statue (a soldier on horseback), but said statue ends up riding on top of the tank. It's then used to get some police cars off his back when it falls off right in front of them. And it proves effective in scattering the cops away from 007.
  • Carpet of Virility: Brosnan's Bond is the first since Connery's to have a hairy chest, as a couple of Shirtless Scenes show.
  • The Casanova: Bond of course. Though in this film it gets lampshaded a few times. M gives Bond a "The Reason You Suck" Speech and calls him "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur" in regards to his womanizing ways. Trevelyan asks Bond if he "found forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect." Finally. Natalya gets angry at Bond for treating her like a Girl of the Week.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue:
    • During their action sequence at the beginning, James and Alec demonstrate their rapport by carrying on a casual conversation while fighting off their attackers.
    • Gets lampshaded during the interrogation scene:
      Mishkin: So, by what means shall we execute you, Commander Bond?
      Bond: What, no small-talk? No chit-chat? That's the trouble with the world today. No one takes the time to do a really sinister interrogation anymore. It's a lost art.
  • Catch a Falling Star: Bond rides a motorcycle off a cliff, skydives without a parachute to the open door of the airplane in a powered dive to oblivion, pulls himself inside, and pulls up.
  • Catchphrase: Beyond Bond's classics, there are:
    • Alec Trevelyan's "For England, James?"
    • After beating Xenia at Baccarat, Xenia tells Bond in regards to the money he's won, "Enjoy it, while it lasts" to which Bond replies that those are the very words he lives by
    • Boris' "Yes! I AM INVINCIBLE!"
    • Xenia's screaming "Yes!"
    • Natalya's "Boys with toys!"
  • The Cavalry Arrives Late: At the end of the movie, Jack Wade shows up with a truly ridiculous number of Marines that would have been super helpful about fifteen minutes earlier.
  • Central Theme: Why Bond Is Bummed Communism Fell. Also, what happens when the unexploded bombs of the past resurface?
  • Chairman of the Brawl: Bond kicks a fallen chair to knock General Ourumov's legs out from under him.
  • Chase Scene: This entry avoids the usual Bond movie car chase scene, due to BMW signing on too late for their Product Placement and only providing the film makers with a prototype, so it couldn't be damaged in any way. However, it more than makes up for it by having a chase scene with a tank. One of the most memorable in the Bond franchise.
  • Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Boris survives the destruction of Janus' base in Cuba, only to be frozen solid by an exploding nitrogen tank moments after he celebrates his good fortune with his catchphrase 'I AM INVINCIBLE!'
  • Chekhov's Armoury: Subverted by the BMW—though Q goes into detail about the car's "usual refinements," none of its gadgets are ever used, and the car itself makes only a cameo appearance. Product Placement at its finest.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Bond changing the timers on the explosives from six minutes to three. Trevelyan gives Bond and Natalya "the same six minutes you game me" when he leaves them to die on the train.
    • Boris' habit for clicking and spinning pens. The use of the pen grenade activated by clicking it rapidly seems to have a natural conclusion.
    • The oil leak in Trevelyan's base.
    • It's a Bond movie, so of course, all the gadgets Bond receives at Q Branch. The only exception is the Watch Laser, which isn't shown or talked about, so it ends up as a Deus ex machina. It's inadvertently subverted with the BMW. Q explains all of the awesome things it does, and then Bond uses it to.... drive to a meeting point. The reason for this is that not only it entered production too late to write a scene with it, but also BMW lent the only prototype for production of the film, so they couldn't use it in any stunts or action scenes where it might get damaged in any way. Otherwise we would've seen it do what Bond cars usually do. It's made up for in the tank chase, which is conveniently foreshadowed when Bond is on the run in the Archives Library, as he looks down through the window at the motorpool.
    • Boris' "spiking" computer attack.
    • Boris explaining the way "spiking" works to Natalya, which comes in handy when Bond and Natalya use it to find Trevelyan's second base of operations.
    • Q explaining how his gadgets work. In particular, when Q explains how the belt grappling hook works, and Bond asks "What if I need additional support?" to which Q replies, "It's tested for one." which becomes prominent later when, while preparing to use it, he has Natalya with him and can't use it for both of them. Then she falls through the floor and is captured, thus solving that part of the problem.
    • Valentin explaining to Bond about the Lienz Cossacks. Bond will reveal it (Alec being a Lienz Cossack descendent) to Ourumov during the train scene partly to try to break the Mexican Standoff situation. Obviously, Alec betrays Ourumov like the Lienz Cossacks did with the Russians in WWII.
      Bond: Ourumov, what has this Cossack promised you? You knew, didn't you? He's a Lienz Cossack.
      Alec: It's in the past...
      Bond: He'll betray you! Just like everyone else.
      Ourumov: Is this true?
      Alec Trevelyan: What's true is that in 48 hours you and I will have more money than God...
    • Wade telling Bond that if he needs help, to get on the horn, and Wade will send in the Marines. Sure he will.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Boris is quite dismissive of Natalya's programming abilities, sneering that "she works on the guidance system." The GoldenEye is destroyed when she uses said guidance system to drop it out of orbit.
  • Chewing the Scenery: Who can forget Boris Grishenko? I AM INVINCIBLE!!!
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Bond genuinely cares about Natalya and her well-being, and he's very affectionate and playful towards her. He even gives her a several Eskimo kisses near the end, which people usually only do when they sincerely like (and not just lust after) a romantic partner.
  • *Click* Hello: Used twice in one scene when Bond goes to meet Valentin to negotiate a meeting with Janus. Bond introduces himself by approaching Valentin from behind and cocking a gun to his head with an audible click (doubles as Casual Danger Dialogue, all things considered):
    Valentin: [recognizing the cocking noise] Walther PPK. 7.65mm. Only three men I know use such a gun; I believe I've killed two of them.
    Bond: Lucky me.
    [one of Valentin's henchmen pulls the same trick on Bond with his own PPK]
    Valentin: I think not.
  • Climbing Climax: The climax takes place atop the giant satellite dish Trevelyan is using to control the GoldenEye. Unlike most examples, though, it's the villain that's chasing Bond (who's trying to disable the dish) rather than the other way around where Bond must race to the dish.
  • Clip Its Wings: Bond and Natalya are in a light plane searching for the backup GoldenEye facility when they are shot down by a missile. Bond manages to crash land the plane in the jungle, but it slides between two trees and knocks its wings off.
  • Cloth Fu: Bond beats a Mook by tying his arm with a towel and throwing him down the stairs. He then casually towels himself off.
  • Collapsing Lair: Trevelyan's base in Cuba. First, the pen grenade combined with the oil leak tear the base apart, then it becomes even worse when the antenna falls on the dish, the wreckage perforates the ceiling and it invades the underground base. And then the liquid nitrogen tanks burst.
  • Combat Sadomasochist: Xena literally gets off on murdering people, as shown during the Severnaya massacre. It's enough to get an Eye Take from Ourumov himself. On the masochist side, she loves Bond hitting her in the sauna scene. She also seems rather excited by the idea that Bond is going to derail the train she's on.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Mishkin pretends to be interrogating Bond, but Natalya Simonova is his real target. Bond even suffers a Take That! one-liner from Mishkin after Simonova spills the beans.
  • Comic-Book Adaptation: Topps Comics launched a mini-series adapting the film, but it was cancelled after only the first issue and the complete adaptation has never been published. The cancellation is often rumoured to have something to do with this cover; no-one is entirely certain what actually happened to get both issues pulled rather than making a variant cover, although Topps Comics did not have the best fortune during the '90s.
  • Comic-Book Time: The first Bond film to really avert this. While previous films in the series had made mention of incidents in other films, this is the first where a serious jump in time occurs with nine years passing in between the pre-title scenes and the rest of the film. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the scenes before the title sequence took place during the Cold War and that it's over now.
  • Commissar Cap: Ourumov, as he is an officer in the Russian military (and later, head of the Russian Space Division), wears one of these as part of his uniform.
  • Complexity Addiction:
    • Trevelyan puts Bond in a helicopter that's about to blow itself up, which he escapes from. This one has a justification, since Trevelyan was not trying to kill Bond (he was pretty sure Bond would get out of it), but intending to incriminate him for crimes Trevelyan has committed or had carried with his "Janus" cover against the Russians with that very helicopter (namely, the shootings at Severnaya and the subsequent cover-up with the explosion). When the Russians show up after the explosion and find Bond with the wreckage, they assume the worst and take him into custody.
    • It's played straight when Trevelyan tries to kill Bond in the train car rigged to explode in "the same six minutes you gave me.", feeling the need to give Bond a Karmic Death, and of course, it's just enough time for Bond to escape. There was no reason Trevelyan couldn't have set the timers just long enough for his chopper to get clear or have used explosives that could be detonated by remote or simply not told Bond about them.
    • This gets a Lampshade Hanging by Bond when he's being interrogated by Mishkin.
      Mishkin: So, by what means shall we execute you, Commander?
      Bond: What? No small talk? No chit chat? See, that's the problem with the world these days; nobody takes the time to do a really sinister interrogation anymore.
    • Bond himself does it. When asked by Valentin why Bond just shot him in the leg and didn't kill him, Bond replies, "Call it professional courtesy," though there might be more to it than just that. If Bond had killed Valentin before the events of the movie, he wouldn't have an ex-KGB agent to seek out in order to set up a meeting with Janus. Valentin returns to be a supporting ally of Bond's in The World Is Not Enough as well, where he even saves Bond from Elektra King's garrote chair.
  • Composite Character: After the release of GoldenEye, critics and fans have observed that Pierce Brosnan's interpretation of 007 is an amalgamation of his predecessors; he has Connery's charisma, Lazenby's vulnerability, Moore's humour and Dalton's grittiness.
  • Computer Equals Monitor: Boris, toward the end as the antenna had been physically jammed by Bond and is being prevented from sending new restaging instructions to prevent the remaining GoldenEye satellite from burning up in the atmosphere — he's seen shaking the monitor while yelling "Speak to me!" On one hand, a hacker like him should know better. On the other hand, he is very much frazzled and desperate at this point and as much of a computer expert as he is Boris is definitely not professional in his mannerisms.
  • Concert Kiss: At the end of the film, while making out, and thinking they're alone, Natalya asks, "Suppose someone is watching?" to which Bond replies, "There's no one within 25 miles of here." Then Wade suddenly appears, and Bond and Natalya are a little embarrassed but thinking it's not too bad, Wade suddenly calls out a command, to which dozens of Marines, right in the area where Bond and Natalya were making out, blended in with the ground by camouflage, suddenly appear.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Bond's performance evaluation just happens to be set in Monte Carlo, where Xenia and the Janus Syndicate are just about to steal the experimental EMP-proof helicopter. Moreover, Bond randomly meets Xenia while they are driving on the same road into the city at the exact same time, leading to their impromptu race. In fairness, this appears to have been a field test, and Bond was already in Monte Carlo following up on a lead tracking down members of the Janus syndicate to question. Him encountering Xenia on the road is the only contrived coincidence there.
  • Convenient Enemy Base: Bond and Natalya fly over a lake in Cuba looking for Janus' secret base. He's just about to give up when a missile shoots him down. After Xena gets killed, Janus thoughtfully drains the lake, revealing the base.
  • Conveniently Empty Roads: Averted. The tank chase sees both sides (mostly Bond, though) causing collateral damage to civilian vehicles, among other things.
    • The opening car race also includes a few near misses with a tractor and a squad of cyclists; the worst that happens is that the latter fall over seemingly out of shock after Bond and Xenia pass by.
  • Cool Car:
    • Bond's tricked-out BMW Z3 Roadster got to the filmmakers too late to be use in the movie (thus the tank chase) but was so cool that it apparently followed Bond to the USA, where Jack Wade traded an airplane for it.
    • There is also 007's trademark Aston Martin DB5, used in a race against an even cooler car, a Ferrari F355 GTS driven by Xenia. (In the words of the stunt coordinator, it's "a perfectly shaped, old and vulnerable vehicle and a racecar").
  • Cool Train: Trevelyan's missile train base.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Part of the Trevelyan's grudge against England stems from his people (Lienz Cossacks) being sold out to Stalin, who had them killed for being Nazi supporters. While his parents survived, they killed themselves out of Survivor's Guilt. Ironically, Alec ended up working for the country who sold his people out. Although MI6 was aware of it, they thought that since this occurred in his childhood, he wouldn't be affected by them, unaware of the raw hatred Trevelyan held against Britain.
    • This was suggested to be part of Onatopp's character; in interviews Janssen suggested that her background would have been one of food shortages and struggle and that Xenia's current lavish life was akin to a child in a sweet shop, meaning the difficulties of the late-Cold War CCCP actively created a turncoat Janus could pluck up.
  • Creator Cameo:
    • Martin Campbell is the lead cyclist in the peloton that Bond and Onatopp race past.
    • Michael G. Wilson plays one of the Russian officers in the meeting room when Ouromov announces his resignation. His hand is also the one in the close-up of the Canadian Admiral's ID card being taken from his pocket.
    • The Eurocopter pilot with the speaking line that Xenia kills just before hijacking the aircraft is played by Wayne Michaels, Brosnan's stunt double and the performer of the opening bungie jump.
  • Creepy Cathedral: Where Natalya goes to meet Boris and gets kidnapped by Onatopp.
  • Crew of One: Bond mostly just drives the tank, with apparently limited maneuverability. When he does fire it, it is completely stationary (implying that he moved about in it) and is being fired at an oncoming train.
    • Behind the scenes, Brosnan wasn't controlling the tank, just sticking his head through the front hatch. The real driver was lying prone on the floor underneath him and looking though a concealed glass panel cut out of the glacis plate.
  • Crucified Hero Shot: Curiously, Xenia Onatopp ends up dying stuck in a tree in this manner. Though the heroes' reaction quickly destroys any thought of comparison.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death:
    • Anyone who crosses paths with Xenia is liable to meet this fate. The unsuspecting admiral she seduces to steal the Tiger helicopter finds this out the hard way, and every single soldier and technician at Severnaya becomes the target of her lethal lust. Bond however returns the favour in due time...
    • Janus falls dozens of metres down an antenna cradle... only to be, while already more dead than alive, crushed by it moments later.
  • Cut the Juice: Boris flips out when Natalya "spikes" his computer, which also prevents him from disconnecting his computer from hers, and rips it apart to break the connection. Considering the fact that he could have just shut off the computer, or, even easier, turned off the internet connection (pull out the ethernet cord or shutdown a router), the apparently thousands of dollars of damage he inflicts on the computer is really stupid
  • Cutting the Knot: Ouromov makes his getaway in a car into a crowded Russian street. Bond commandeers a tank and drives through a wall.
  • Cyberpunk: Arguably, seeing as the film was made when the Internet was only young and computing was really beginning to take off. This can be seen in Boris being a wizard 'hacker' as well as Natalya demanding to use several IBMs with jargon-infused specifications at a computer shop.
  • Darker and Edgier: While it is tamer compared to Licence to Kill. It still manages to be rather serious and dark. With Alec's backstory and betrayal. Xenia Onatopp's way of killing. And this version of bond having the highest kill count out of all them. It's sequel Tomorrow Never Dies does manage to be more Lighter and Softer though Until The World Is Not Enough
  • Dead Man's Trigger Finger: Some of the AK-wielding Russian soldiers killed during Bond and 006’s raid on the Soviet chemical weapons plant.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Samantha Bond's portrayal of Moneypenny in this film is perhaps the snarkiest to date.
  • Dead Star Walking: Played With. Sean Bean was best known at the time for starring in Sharpe, so it seemed like a shock that he'd be killed off in The Teaser. Then he gets billed straight after Brosnan...
  • Death by Cameo: Wayne Michaels (who performed the bungee jump at the beginning) appears as a helicopter pilot who gets shot by Xenia.
  • Death by Irony:
    • Xenia, who enjoying crushing men to death, was crushed to death herself by a tree when Bond shoots down the helicopter that was holding the safety harness that Xenia was in. As Bond himself Lampshades, "She always did enjoy a good squeeze."
    • Also General Ourumov, who helped Trevelyan to fake his death to secure his defection and to turn their alliance into one of Russia's most notorious crime syndicates. Come their confrontation with Bond on the train, and Trevelyan leaves him to take the bullet as he flees the scene with Xenia.
  • Death by Looking Up:
    • Subverted by Natalya in Severnaya when the set of computer screens falling from the ceiling stop right above her.
    • Trevelyan, when he lands in the drained reservoir and the cradle falls right on top of him.
  • Death Glare:
    • Mishkin gives one to Ourumov when he realizes he's the real traitor as Bond and Natalya had warned him. It sadly doesn't end well for him.
    • Trevelyan also gives Bond one dripping with venom after the latter dismisses his entire scheme as "petty theft" and derides Trevelyan as little more than a common thief.
  • Decon-Recon Switch: The first Bond movie to be made after the Cold War, it does a lot in deconstructing James Bond, with many characters going on about how much the world has changed and how he doesn't fit so well into it anymore. Then, we're back to nifty gadgets, Bond One Liners and a car chase with a tank.
  • Deconstruction: This is the first Bond film to seriously question the relevance of spies like Bond in a post-Cold War setting, a theme that has been everpresent in the series since. The new female M gives Bond a memorable and scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech calling him out for his misogyny and outdated views.
  • Deconstructor Fleet:
    • The header quote nicely sums up Bond's uneasiness with The '90s. The series had trouble finding its niche in a politically-correct world; hence, Bond literally finds himself a man out of time:
    • Trevelyan asks Bond if "all those vodka martinis" can drown out the screams of the men he's killed, and suggests his chronic womanizing is a means to forget the numerous women he let perish and to mask his grief over the loss of the woman he truly loved (Tracy Bond) at the hands of Blofeld. Cynical stuff!
    • The casting of Dame Judi Dench as M. It provided something never before seen in the Bond universe: a female authority figure. She then proceeded to prove just how good a choice that was by outlasting Brosnan's Bond — and the original Bond canon (following a Continuity Reboot with Casino Royale) — by several films.
  • Decoy Hiding Place: When the Servanaya base is overrun, Natalya runs to the kitchen to hide, but leaves an air vent cover hanging open. Xenia sees it and smugly shoots up the ducts before leaving. After Xenia leaves, it is revealed that Natalya was hiding in a cupboard.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Xenia Onatopp is a serial rapist who kills men by crushing them between her thighs while having sex with them. She tries to kill James Bond in this manner and successfully kills an earlier target this way. When Trevelyan taunts Bond about how Natalya (who he forcefully kissed) "tastes like strawberries", Xenia moans and licks her lips. When Natalya tries to stop Xenia from killing Bond, Xenia tells her to "wait for her turn", revealing that she plans to rape and kill her as well.
  • Description Porn: Part of Zukhovsky's introduction when he has James Bond's gun pointed to his head.
    Zukhovsky: Walther PPK, 7.65 millimetre. Only three men I know use such a gun. Believe I've killed two of them.
  • Destroy the Product Placement: Bond destroys a Perrier truck with the tank. Perrier, whose inclusion in the movie led to a sales spike, actually demanded that after filming, all the cans were picked up, lest bystanders do so and misuse the cans...
  • Destructo-Nookie: Surprisingly averted during the spa encounter with Bond and Xenia, despite him running her into several walls and Xenia getting some good use out of a bench or massage table while working Bond's ribs over.
  • Deus ex machina: The watch laser that Bond uses to escape from the train car. Not exactly far-fetched since it's a Bond movie, but what makes it fall under this category is it not being shown during the scene with Q where all the other gadgets are shown and talked about. Since it's a Bond film, a Type 3 Chekhov's Gun "to write the story out of a corner" variant occurs with the other Q gadgets.
  • Diabolical Mastermind: Janus, who is the head of a big time arms dealing syndicate that has got its hands on a Kill Sat.
  • Dialogue Reversal: Bond and Natalya do this to one another even though they're not directly conversing when they do so. Aboard the converted missile train, Trevelyan has Natalya as a hostage and threatens to kill her if Bond doesn't surrender ("Two targets, time enough for one shot. The girl, or the mission?"); he replies, "Kill her. She means nothing to me." Both of them (along with Trevelyan) end up escaping alive. Near the end of the film the roles are reversed in Cuba, where Trevelyan, upon finding out Natalya had managed to change the access codes to the GoldenEye and had set on a path to deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere, gets desperate and holds Bond at gunpoint to get her to tell them how to regain control; she gets to reply, "Go ahead. Shoot him. He means nothing to me."
  • Died Standing Up: After the explosion around him, Boris Grishenko comes out of the desk he used as cover unharmed to shout: "YES! I AM INVINCIBLE!!"; failing to notice the tanks of liquid nitrogen which explodes... flash-freezing him in his current pose.
  • Digital Destruction: The Ultimate Edition DVD suffers from overly cropped picture. This became fixed for the Blu-Ray Disc, but that disc unfortunately has more severe digital noise reduction than any other James Bond Blu-Ray.
  • Dirty Business: Bond has to kill a lot of innocent Russian soldiers to make his escape after Ouromov kills Defence Minister Mishkin. But he has no choice if he wants to save Natalya and get to Trevelyan.
  • Dirty Communists: Referenced throughout the film, as the characters talk about the Cold War and the post-Cold War world.
  • Disapproving Look: Ourumov makes one after seeing Xenia's orgasmic expression while gunning down the Severnaya staff.
  • Disposable Love Interest: Trevelyan asks Bond "if you've found forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect."
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In the words of Bond himself, Alec's plan consists of "A worldwide financial meltdown, and all so mad little Alec can settle a score with the world fifty years on."
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: During Bond's encounter with Xenia Onatopp in the sauna, when Xenia wraps her Murderous Thighs around Bond and he pushes her up against a wall in an attempt to dislodge her — while they're both scantily dressed and she's enjoying herself immensely — there's a distinct resemblance to a Wall Bang Her scene.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Subverted. As Q describes the operation of a pen-grenade he'll be using on his next assignment, James finds and picks up a good-sized sub sandwich. Q sees this and immediately grabs the sub out of his hands, telling him not to touch it. James, of course, assumes that it was another grenade, and that he almost set it off. But, no, it's just Q's lunch.
  • Double Entendre:
    • Boris' passwords. "They're right in front of you, and can open very large doors." "Knockers." This becomes a plot point later, when Natalya is trying to crack one with a string of Double Entendres, but the answer is actually innocuous. "You sit on it, but can't take it with you." Chair.
    • And of course it wouldn't be a Bond film without 007 using them.
      • "As you can see, I have no problem with female authority."
      • "Let's drink to your evaluation. A very... thorough evaluation."
  • Double Take: When Bond sees Alec held at gunpoint by Ourumov (and all the others pointing their guns at him); the shock is evident on his face the second time he emerges from behind the canister.
  • Down in the Dumps: James meets Trevelyan in a sort of junkyard for statues of Soviet heroes.
  • Do You Want to Copulate?: A subtle approach, but Bond's interest in Xenia in the sauna is spelled out fairly explicitly when he quips about what she considers 'safe sex'. Her own interest is confirmed when she approaches Bond and disregards his caution, advising she isn't close enough for what she has in mind.
  • Dramatic Gun Cock: Bond gets one of these after fighting off Xenia. '*click* Take me to Janus.' Possible since this was in a bathhouse or bathroom, where one may not always carry a ready to fire pistol. This most likely (in universe) was done for emphasis by Bond, since the Walther PPK is a double-action semi-automatic, meaning that if a round is in the chamber, it is ready to fire just by pulling the trigger. The only reason to cock it is to ensure an accurate first shot and/or to intimidate the target, both justifiable reasons.
  • Dueling Hackers: There's a world map where the audience can see how the tracing back of the hacker works (in Hollywood!). The backtracing map is trivial to implement (traceroute, GeoIP, Google Maps, whatever takes your fancy), its just that fancy Viewer Friendly Interfaces tend to get in the way of most useful network administration or abusing activities. Also, Boris kills time by hacking into Western computers and taunting his opponents as they try to thwart him. He even thinks of unplugging his computer in the end, when he gets hacked back. He doesn't just pull the cable out though, but rips out whole racks of gear and throws them on the floor.
  • Dying Smirk: Boris uses his catchphrase ("I'm invincible!") and smiles as he is frozen by nitrogen tanks.
  • Ejection Seat: Bond ejects himself and Natalya from the Tiger when it's rigged to shoot itself with its own missiles. Of course, the ejection mechanism shoots out the blades from the top rotor first, for fairly obvious reasons.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: The elaborate underground military bunker at Severnaya, and Janus' lair is actually below the giant pool where the cradle antenna is hidden.
  • Elevator Action Sequence: Subverted: the elevator reaches its destination and the doors open, revealing Natalya apparently unconscious on the floor as a guard walks in in confusion. Cue Bond dropping down from the ceiling and smashing him into the wall!
  • Embarrassing Password: Inverted. Boris is constantly using sexual remarks towards a woman's anatomy for all his passwords and isn't ashamed to let others know it — what is right in front of you and open very large doors? ("KNOCKERS") Later in the movie, Natalya gets an opportunity to trace Boris's location because he's online backing up his files, but she can't figure out the current password — "You sit on this, but can't take it with you." Natalya tries every embarrassing word she can think of for a woman's butt. Stumped, she tell Bond about it, and he replies with "CHAIR". Natalya is embarrassed that she didn't think of that.
  • Embarrassing Tattoo: Wade has a tattoo on his leg of a rose and the name of this third wife, Muffy.
  • EMP: The titular GoldenEye is the best known example in modern cinema.
  • Empty Quiver: The entire plot is set off by the theft of the GoldenEye weapon. (It's a nuclear warhead in orbit, designed to shoot a concentrated EMP at a single target when detonated, rather than making a burst that destroys everything in range of the blast.)
  • Enemy Mine: Bond gets Valentin to help him by using their common enemy in Trevelyan.
    Valentin: He wants me to do him a favour!
  • End of an Age: It was with this film that Bond truly said goodbye to the Cold War. Nothing says it as much as the statues of Vladimir Lenin and other Communist symbols being toppled/smashed in the Title Sequence and the "cemetery" of Lenin statues.
  • Erotic Asphyxiation: Part of Xenia's MO. She wraps her thighs around the ribcages of her lovers and victims and squeezes, depriving them of air and thoroughly enjoying the situation herself. Most prominently employed in the Interplay of Sex and Violence scene that is the sauna.
  • Establishing Character Moment: For this iteration of M, it would be when she offers Bond a drink. While the previous M prefered cognac, her preference has turned to bourbon. From French brandywine to American whiskey.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: When Janus turns out to be Alec Trevelyan/006, who faked his death in the Arkhangelsk facility, Bond's reaction to this is one of pure shock and anger.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Xenia's orgasmic massacre of the Severnaya satellite control centre's staff is enough to startle General Ourumov, albeit briefly. He's also taken aback as Bond tells him that Alec Trevelyan is a Lienz Cossack, and therefore the child of a traitor. It's interesting that this shakes Ouromov, as he already knows Trevelyan is a traitor to a former employer, and had planned to kill one of his colleagues while enacting his exit strategy.
      • Averted earlier. MI6 analysts believe this applies to Ourumov: they discount him as a possible accomplice in the destruction of Severnaya because as a career soldier who "sees himself as the next Iron Man of Russia," he "doesn't fit the profile of a traitor." Bond, of course, doesn't believe a word of it, and is vindicated by events.
    • Zukovsky may be ex-KGB and an arms dealer, but even he despises the Lienz Cossacks for collaborating with the Nazis against their own country during World War II. As far as he's concerned, they more than deserved their final, brutal fates.
  • Every Man Has His Price: Bond sets up a bank heist with Valentin Zukovsky in order to pay him off for setting him up with Janus. Considering Bond nearly crippled him years before, it went well.
    Wade: So let me get this straight. Jimmy; you shot him in the leg, you stole his car, you took his girl, and now you want Valentin Zukovsky to set you up with Janus? What are you gonna do? Appeal to his heart?
    Bond: No, his wallet.
    Wade: That could work.
  • Evil Brit: Alec Trevelyan, being a Brit descended from Lienz Cossacks.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Averted. Trevelyan briefly thought of offering Bond a chance to join his Evil Plan, but knew that 007 would reject it and prioritize the mission over his friends.
  • Evil Counterpart: Alec Trevelyan, of course. Probably the most out of any other villain in the series so far, as he was a 00 agent like Bond and a former friend of his, so It's Personal. Alec has a similar physique, background, and training to Bond. He even gives the For Want Of A Nail reasoning and a "Not So Different" Remark. Also highlighted is the fact that both are orphans who joined the Secret Service. Trevelyan chastises Bond for being "Her Majesty's loyal terrier" that is stuck in the past, whilst ironically he himself is just as if not more shacked to the past than Bond is. As Bond sums it up, "mad little" Alec is trying to settle an old grudge in his plan to get payback against England.
    • Fans have noted Onatopp is kind of female evil counterpart to Bond, both work are agents of a organisation and both are a fan of sex and violence. Though Onatopp takes her indulgences to a level that repels even Bond.
  • Evil Former Friend: Alec Trevelyan, as a renegade 00 agent who was Bond's friend.
  • Evil Gloating: Following an intense fist fight, Trevelyan is armed, James Bond is at gunpoint... and he stops to breathe and then say "You know, James? I was always better" before shooting - and he misses, because his pause gave Bond a chance to kick open a trapdoor and go down a staircase.
  • Evil Plan: Alec Trevelyan seeks revenge against the British government for betraying his family, who were Lienz Cossacks sent back to Stalin, by detonating the GoldenEye over London. Furthermore, he planned to steal billions of pounds from the Bank of England — as well as all sorts of data like credit ratings, land registers and criminal records — and the records of the transactions will be zapped, leaving him very rich and leaving the British — and indeed, the world — economy in shambles.
  • Explosive Instrumentation: The EMP doesn't simply disable the electronics in the Severnaya facility. It causes every single metallic surface to arc massive electrical sparks everywhere and every single control panel and monitor to dramatically explode in huge showers of sparks. The same happens to the dashboards in the fighter jets caught in the EMP blast. The Cuban facility later in the film also gets hit by this trope, though nowhere near up to eleven like Severnaya.
  • Eye Take:
    • Ourumov gets one of these after witnessing Xenia gunning down the staff of the Severnaya bunker and having a bit too much fun in the process.
    • Bond also has one in the steam room, where he seems a little flustered by Onatopp's viciousness and apparently enjoying being roughly shoved into a wall.
  • Face–Heel Turn:
    • Alec Trevelyan. Given he appeared to have died in that explosion, it's understandable why it hit Bond very hard to find that Trevelyan has turned traitor.
  • Fakeout Escape: While fleeing from Xenia and her goons, Natalya opens an air vent to make them think she is attempting an Air Vent Escape. Xenia sprays the ceiling with a machine gun and assumes she must have hit Natalya. But Natalya was actually hiding in a cupboard.
    • Ouromov, who betrays the Russian government to join Trevelyan's syndicate.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Subverted. After Bond discovers Janus is Trevelyan, Bond rightly wonders how MI6's screening could've possibly missed that Trevelyan's parents were Lienz Cossacks. Trevelyan reveals their screening didn't miss it at all: they knew, and still let him into Britian's national security agency anyway. MI6's fatal mistake was believing that Trevelyan was too young to remember his parents' suicide or the British Government's betrayal of Trevelyan's people.
  • Falling Chandelier of Doom: Subverted at the last second at the Severnaya base, when a hanging rack of computer monitors falls from the ceiling onto Natalya, stopping mere centimetres above her body. Played straight on Trevelyan at the end, with a radio antenna dish.
  • False Friend: Boris pretends to help Natalya after discovering she's still alive, in order to lure her into Trevelyan's clutches.
  • Fanservice: Xenia is oozing with Fanservice, but with Natalya, it's understated. Despite being played by a model, she spends most of the film in very ordinary office clothing, and the final act in fatigues. There's one brief scene of her in a bikini, but with the exception of a view of her crotch area, the camera mostly avoids focusing on her body. In fact, one of the scant criticisms of the film was that such an obviously beautiful woman spent so much of the film attired so drably.
  • Fast-Roping: Xenia rappels down from a helicopter in her final confrontation with James Bond. This ultimately gets her killed when Bond commandeers her AK-47 and blows away the pilot of the helicopter, and she gets yanked off him by her own rope and strangled to death against a tree.
  • Fatal Flaw:
    • Alec Trevelyan exploits the fact that women are Bond's greatest weakness.
    • Xenia Onatopp's sadism — murdering people turns her on, as shown during the Severnaya massacre, enough to get an Eye Take from Ourumov. It ultimately backfires on her, as while trying to torture Bond with her thighs, Bond is able to connect the rope she rappelled down to her safety harness, grab her AK-74 rifle, and shoot down a helicopter with her rifle. The harness yanks her off Bond and sends her flying, screaming, into the crotch of a tree, with her safety harness ironically crushing her to death.
  • Female Gaze: There are several gratuitous shots of Bond leisurely swimming in the pool of his hotel. It's a mix of close-ups of his face and upper chest, plus wide shots of his body which serve very little purpose other than to demonstrate just how Tall, Dark, and Handsome and wet he is. This particular set-up makes Bond appear much more erotic during his Interplay of Sex and Violence fight with Xenia (which includes several sexually suggestive lines, including "That depends on your definition of safe sex" and "No, no, no. No more foreplay") because he's still dripping wet and only dressed in his swimming trunks.
  • Final Exchange: Between Bond and his Face Heel Turned friend, Alec Trevelyan:
    Alec: For England, James? [Bond drops him off a giant satellite dish]
    Bond: No. For me.
  • First-Name Basis:
    • Alec Trevelyan was the only Bond villain up until this point in the series to address 007 as "James" instead of "Mr. Bond." It may also double as Something Only They Would Say. Bond, already on edge, instinctively points his gun in the direction of the voice, but gradually lowers it in shock and surprise just as Trevelyan reveals himself.
    • Ouromov at first addresses Mishkin by his title of "Defence Minister" and does so at first when he is yelling at Mishkin after he bursts in on Mishkin interrogating Bond and Natalya. After a brief argument, he addresses Mishkin by his first name of "Dmitri" when he calms down and asks him a question, prompting Mishkin to yell for the guards.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Natalya is caught in the server room, Boris scoffs that she can't have done any harm because she is a "second-level programmer" who "works on the guidance system", with no access to any of the kill-sat's weapon systems. Immediately afterward it becomes apparent that she has rerouted the satellite, ordering it to deorbit and burn up over the Atlantic Ocean.
  • Flashback with the Other Darrin: The Cold Open takes place nine years before the rest of the movie, which would put it a year before The Living Daylights. Even so, Bond is still played by Pierce Brosnan there rather than Timothy Dalton.
  • Flash Freezing Coolant: Boris survives the destruction of the Goldeneye base in Cuba. But just as he stands up and declares "Yes! I AM INVINCIBLE!", the liquid nitrogen coolant tanks rupture, dousing him in liquid nitrogen and flash-freezing him into a statue.
  • Flipping the Bird: Zukovsky's moll does the arm version when he stops her in the middle of her musical number and tells her to leave so he can talk to Bond in private.
  • Foe Romance Subtext: There's more than a bit of homoeroticism between Bond and Alec.
    Alec: You know, James and I shared everything... absolutely everything.
  • Forceful Kiss: Onatopp assaults Bond with several of these; an initial one in the sauna ends in her biting Bond's lip hard enough to draw blood before she's shoved into a wall; the second is one she plants on Bond after he runs the pair of them into a another wall trying to free himself from her grasp, in this instance grasping his face and outright throwing an arm arund him to lock him in, refusing to let go. She later delivers a long lick up a disoriented Bond's face after declaring her intent in the Cuban jungles.
  • Foreign Cuss Word: Xenia Onatopp bellows something extremely impolite in Russian after Bond takes the victory in the sauna fight; she practically snarls the same word earlier, having lost to Bond at cards.
    • The word in question is "блядь," prounounced "Blyad," which is Russian for "whore" or "fuck."
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Our first glimpse of Alec Trevelyan comes as he is pointing a gun at Bond's head shouting at him in Russian, his face cloaked in shadows.
    • When Bond and Trevelyan are breaking into the base, it's noted that the security seems rather light. Since Trevelyan is already planning to defect, Ourumov would intentionally make it easier for him to get in.
      • Similarly, just before Bond discovers that Alec is being held at gunpoint, listen closely. There's no sound of any kind of struggle that might suggest that Alec is being overpowered by soldiers and forced into a hostage position. Because he didn't need to be; the whole thing is a set-up.
    • Some of the lyrics to the theme echo Trevelyan's future motives. Not that this is new for the franchise, but it's used in a more subtle manner to hide the plot twist.
    • When the evaluator demands he stop the car during a friendly chase with Onatopp, Bond complies and quips "As you can see, I have no problem with female authority." Later we see that he wasn't just joking, as the new M is female and ordered the evaluation in the first place.
    • This exchange between Bond and M early on in the film becomes this after it turns out Trevelyan is alive:
      M: Avenging Alec Trevelyan will not bring him back.
      Bond: You didn't get him killed.
      M: Neither did you. Don't make it personal.
      Bond: Never.
  • Fresh Clue: When Ouromov and Xenia massacre the staff at Severnaya, Natalya—who is hiding in the kitchen—drops her cup of coffee. When Xenia investigates, she finds the broken cup and spilled coffee on the floor. She dips her finger in it and tastes it. On discovering it is still hot, she knows there is someone still alive in the base.
  • Freudian Excuse: Trevelyan claims that what he is after isn't money, but revenge on Great Britain for the death of his parents (who were Lienz Cossacks). Bond, however questions both his reason and motive; there is no way in hell the son of Lienz Cossacks would have passed the necessary background checks to join MI-6, and his clearance would have allowed him to hurt Britain immensely just by turning whistleblower, so if he was just after revenge, why wait for decades for an opportunity to strike that just happens to be profitable?
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Backstory and motivations aside, Bond notes that "mad little" Alec is only using his Freudian Excuse as a cover for using the satellite to profit from an economic crisis, and that most of the people he's going to screw have nothing to do with whatever happened in the past. It does make sense from Bond's POV: 006 faithfully served MI6 for years before faking his death.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: When Bond gets on the train, Trevelyan has Ourumov holding a pistol to Natalya's head, while he and Xenia stand on the other side of the car, giving Bond a sadistic choice: "So, what's the choice James? Two targets; time enough for one shot: the girl or the mission?"
  • Fruit Cart: A Perrier truck is plowed by Bond's tank during the tank chase.
  • Funny Background Event: As Q gives James Bond his latest gadgets, we see a hapless lab assistant try to make a call from a phone booth situated in the lab, only to get squashed against the glass by an airbag that explodes from within the booth. We briefly see the phone booth being wheeled off a minute later, with the whimpering assistant still trapped inside.
  • Gadget Watches: Bond uses his laser watch to cut his way out of Trevelyan's train. There was no previous scene of him getting from Q Branch; to the average audience, of course he would have such a gadget on him. Furthermore, Trevelyan (an ex-MI-6 agent himself) takes away his watch because he knows it's a gadget of some kind.
  • Gallows Humour:
    • When Q demonstrates the pen-grenade to Bond, by sticking it in a suit-clad dummy's pocket and running. After the explosion:
    • When Wade is dropping Bond off at Valentin's lounge:
      Wade: Are you sure you wanna do this? The last guy who dropped in there uninvited went home air freight in very small boxes.
      Bond: Make sure they send me home first class.
    • When Bond is being interrogated by Mishkin.
      Mishkin: So, by what means shall we execute you, Commander?
      Bond: What? No small talk? No chit chat? See, that's the problem with the world these days; nobody takes the time to do a really sinister interrogation anymore.
  • Gender Flip: Judi Dench becomes the first female M in the series. Mind, she's a new official inheriting the position after the previous M retired, rather than the same character's role being recast, like Bond himself.
  • Girl of the Week:
    • Lampshaded. Natalya becomes angry at Bond for treating her like this. (This doesn't stop it from occurring.)
    • Minor gender inversion; Xenia seems to treat Bond in this way, albeit in her unique fashion.
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: When Trevelyan outs himself as Janus, a shocked 007's attempts to reason with him fall flat when the latter reveals his Evil Plan to wreck Britain's economy via the titular Kill Sat. Ultimately, Bond realizes Trevelyan is a madman who needs to be stopped even if he has legitimate grievances.
  • Good Is Old-Fashioned: Trevelyan mocks 007 for being "Her Majesty's loyal terrier," his status as The Casanova, and adhering to old-fashioned espionage tactics. Of course, Bond makes a cutting remark of his own, stating that "mad little" Alec himself is stuck in the past, as part of his grudge against England involves settling an old score that caused his parents to kill themselves of the shame of surviving the Soviet dictator Stalin's death squads at the end of WWII.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Alec Trevelyan's right cheek is heavily scarred from the explosion set off by Bond several years earlier, but the left side of his face does not have matching scars, which is the reason he chooses "Janus" as his alias.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Xenia Onatopp smokes cigars, and Boris smokes cigarettes. The good guys, meanwhile, are much less likely to be seen lighting up than in earlier films of the series.
  • Go Out with a Smile: The fate of the Canadian admiral that was at the casino with Xenia. When Bond finds his body stuffed into a closet, well, the look on his face tells us just how much he really enjoyed his good squeeze...
  • Grand Theft Prototype: Ouromov and Xenia steal a prototype Tiger helicopter, but this is not their ultimate objective. Instead, the Tiger's resistance to EMP makes it the perfect getaway vehicle for a second theft, that of the top secret Goldeneye weapons system.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: One of Q's gadgets is a belt with a built-in grappling hook launcher, which, of course, Bond uses to get himself out of a tight spot.
  • Groin Attack: Narrowly averted. Valentin shoots between Bond's legs when Bond disparages his mistress' singing, but doesn't hit him. Intentional, considering it was fired from barely 50 cm away.
  • Gunship Rescue: Trevelyan tries to call one in to get rid of Bond while on top of the transmitter. It then turns into one for Bond, as Natalya stowed away and pops up to point a gun at the pilot's head.
  • Hand Behind Head: James Bond, of all people, does this after Valentin Zukovsky calls him a "charming, sophisticated secret agent."
  • Handicapped Badass: Played with in the scene in Q branch. Bond encounters Q in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast. However, it's just one of his gadgets; a concealed rocket launcher.
    Bond: Good morning, Q. Sorry about the leg. Skiing?
    Q: [fires a rocket out of the cast and blows up a target] Hunting.
  • Hand Stomp: As Bond dangles from the ladder off of the satellite dish, Trevelyan steps on his hand, presses down, and finally stomps on it, causing him to fall. (But of course, his hand remains unbroken)
  • Heel–Face Turn: Valentin Zukovsky was a KGB agent who fought Bond in the past, but by the time of the film helps Bond in looking for Janus using his personal criminal connections(though he claims that it's out of him hating the villain as much as Bond does).
  • Hell-Bent for Leather/Villainous Fashion Sense: Pretty much all of Trevelyan's troops wear the same cloth uniform. The one time Xenia is seen in one (the attack at Severnaya, and her death scene), she is wearing a custom leather version.
  • Hero Insurance: Lampshaded when Bond is told about his car's built-in Stinger missiles:
    Bond: Just the thing to unwind after a long day at the office.
    Q: Need I remind you, 007, that you have a licence to kill, not to break traffic laws.
  • Hero of Another Story: Alec Trevelyan, 006, was apparently killed in the Cold Open, but actually turned against MI-6 as part of an elaborate revenge scheme. In other words, it's a subversion: 006 is emphatically not the Hero of Another Story, but the Big Bad of this one.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Deconstructed. Part of Alec Trevelyan's Freudian Excuse against England is because his parents, who were part of the Lienz Cossacks who worked with the Nazis against the Russians during WWII. The Cossacks, who believed that they were under British protection near the end of the war, were instead sent back to Stalin's death squads. Trevelyan is pissed about this, and seeks to make the British government pay, as it caused his parents to kill themselves out of the shame of surviving. Also, he blames Bond for scarring his face because 007 changed the bomb's timers to three minutes instead of six. Once Bond learns of his motives however, he simply calls Janus out, claiming that most of the innocents he's going to kill have nothing to do with it.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Janus. Prior to Bond meeting him it's mentioned that he hasn't been seen by anyone outside of his syndicate. This keeps people from finding out that he's actually Alec Trevelyan.
  • Hidden Army Reveal: Just when Bond and Natalya think they're alone, a field full of marines and a sky full of helicopters turn up.
  • Hidden Disdain Reveal: Alec Trevelyan and James Bond have supposedly been good friends and colleagues before Trevelyan's presumed death during a failed mission. But when it turns out that Alec is in fact alive and the villain of the film, his longstanding contempt for Bond is revealed in practically everything he says—his loyalty to England and MI6, his womanizing (in particular, that it's partly a defence mechanism to avoid his grief over Tracy's death), and even his skills as an agent:
    Alec: [as he holds Bond at gunpoint, having gotten the upper hand in their fight] You know something, James? I was always better.
  • High-Altitude Battle: The final fight between Bond and Trevelyan on top of the transmitter dish.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Not an entirely straight example, but Trevelyan being crushed by the transmitter dish certainly counts.
  • Hollywood Silencer: Trevelyan dispatches a lab technician with his silenced pistol and later uses it to shoot the first two Soviet troops that respond to the alarm in the gas tank room (the rest he blows away with an AK-47 he takes off one of the first two troops). Each time his gun makes an innocuous "pyoot" sound. The same noise is also made by Bond's little grappling hook gun he uses during the bungee jump off the dam.
  • Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Irina, Valentin's mistress, played by Minnie Driver, absolutely massacres "Stand By Your Man", which is funny considering Driver is actually a very good vocalist. Then again, it must take real talent to sound like you're strangling a bag of cats.
  • Honest John's Dealership: The Indian gun dealer in a deleted scene, who turned out to be rather inept at selling fake guns. Zukovsky smells a rat and has the dealer ejected out for attempting to sell a fake Glock pistol whose firing pin was too short.
  • Honey Trap: Xenia is actually seen killing a man during sex so that her collaborators could steal his ID. She also tries to do the same to Bond himself later on, and he almost falls for it, if not for the fact that when she slaps her thighs around him toward the end of the fight, it seems to knock some sense into Bond (after all, Bond had discovered the body of the last unlucky person to get a good squeeze from Xenia).
  • Hope Spot:
    • Russian Defence Minister Mishkin has been alerted to General Ouromov's treachery by Natalya... only for the treasonous general to show up, kill the minister and the only other witness to Bond and Natalya's interrogation, and then proceeds to throw the Russian army at the pair during their escape attempt.
    • In the cathedral when Natalya meets up with Boris, she thinks she's found a friend for about two seconds until she sees Xenia standing right behind him.
    • Boris has somehow survived a massive gunfight, complete with explosions, that has killed everyone around him. He takes a moment to celebrate his good fortune with his Catchphrase ("I am INVINCIBLE!")... and a vat of liquid nitrogen bursts right behind him, covering him and freezing him in place permanently.
  • Human Shield: Ouromov uses Natalya as one.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Trevelyan gets a bit unwelcome-touchy with Natalya after she's been captured and they're on the train, eventually forcing a kiss on her. She responds by giving him a smack on the face.
    Trevelyan: You know, James and I shared everything. Absolutely everything. To the victor go the spoils. You'll like it where we're going. You'll even learn to like me.
  • Idiot Ball:
    • Bond encounters a lustful Onatopp in a steamy bathhouse, clearly trying to appeal to him sexually. Bond - aware of her background in a criminal organisation - draws his gun on her, even hinting at some awareness of her deadly proclivities with a remark on 'safe sex'. Instead of keeping his gun trained on her and hold a discussion about Janus - or be taken to him - Bond allows her to enter close proximity, kiss him and relieve him of his weapon, and then merely delivers an Eye Take after Xenia bites him and subsequently enjoys his pushing her off him. He then takes too long to retrieve his gun, allowing Xenia to floor him, toy with him, and then handle him like a ragdoll before mounting him and squeezing him, subjecting Bond to her idea of pleasure. Bond can't escape by throwing her around, and is foolish enough to kiss her once more where she seemingly proceeds to break bones; he barely escapes with his life thanks to the heater in the bathhouse.
    • Neither Bond nor Trevelyan grab any magazines for their assault rifles during their final confrontation.
    • Despite having just established that Trevelyan remembers how Q-Branch operates, he then proceeds to allow Boris to play with Bond's consficated pen.
  • If I Wanted X, I Would Y: M putting down Tanner's "Queen of Numbers" quip by saying if she wanted sarcasm she could get it from her children.
  • The Immodest Orgasm: Seen when Xenia Onatopp kills someone by crushing his ribcage between her legs. She does it again during her fight with Bond in a sauna.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Trevelyan has a giant satellite dish slam into him from above.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: In universe, Bond credits himself with this to Valentin, arguing that the real talent lay in hitting his knee and not the rest of him.
  • Improperly Placed Firearms: This is one of the movies where real AK-74s are shown alongside fake ones (both modified AKM or Type 56 like the Rambo examples as well as rubber props). Bond himself did get a hold of a real AKS-74U. Oddly, Xenia and Trevelyan is seen with fake ones in some scenes. Probably because they don't have enough of the real AK-74 as the movie demands.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Ourumov takes several swigs from his flask during the St. Petersburg chase. Can't blame him; it's not everyday you get pursued by a tank...
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Bond plants explosives in Trevelyan's base while under fire from his henchmen and then surrenders to them, so they'll take him out of the blast radius.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: Inverted when Xenia massacres the workers of Severnaya. Xenia moans orgasmically throughout the experience, whereas Ourumov beside her looks at her, aghast at the pleasure she's taking from what to him is just another part of the plan.
  • Inopportune Voice Cracking: Natalya's voice cracks as she yells at Bond to wake up when they find out that they're being held hostage in a stolen helicopter.
  • Insecure Protagonist, Arrogant Antagonist: As Bond tries to deal with the end of the Cold War, he finds himself facing his former fellow double-O agent Alec Trevalyen, who was presumed dead but has rechristened himself as the international criminal mastermind Janus, who spends the film verbally deconstructing Bond.
  • Insert Cameo: Martin Campbell's hand as Alec Trevelyan's when Trevelyan reaches into the Canadian Admiral's jacket pocket to steal his identification card while the Admiral goes Out with a Bang at the hands (or thighs, rather) of Xenia Onatopp.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: The scene where Bond arrives in St Petersburg ends with his local contact ushering him into a car and assuring him that although it's not as fancy as the vehicles Bond usually drives, it's completely reliable. Next scene begins with them trying to repair the car after it breaks down in the middle of the road.
  • Instant Sedation: James is hit in the neck with a tranq dart when he tries to shoot Janus. He goes down immediately, before he can even raise his pistol.
  • Internal Homage: The spectacular Bond vs. Trevelyan fight was deliberately choreographed to be this to the equally excellent Bond vs Grant fight in From Russia with Love—in particular, note the part where Bond blocks Trevelyan's blows in a manner almost identical to the way Bond blocked Grant's.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence:
    • Xenia Onatopp and Bond get involved in a physical struggle at the sauna of his hotel. She tries to crush him to death with her Murderous Thighs, but there are signs that both are clearly enjoying the moment; Onatopp revels in it so much that her toes visibly curl and she unleashes loud screams.
      Onatopp: You don't need the gun... Commander.
      Bond: That depends on your definition of "safe sex."
    • And once 007 wins the fight, he counters Xenia's previous cries of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" with:
      Bond: No, no, no. No more foreplay.
    • Even before Bond meets her we see her very obviously get off shooting up a room full of people.
  • Interrupted Intimacy: Subverted in the bedroom scene between Xenia and the Admiral, which seemingly has an audience of at least one while she murders him; Xenia nonetheless keeps going and is borderline cacophonic in her enjoyment of the act. Similarly in the spa, there seems to be an attendant at the entrance which doesn't stop Xenia from noisily enjoying her manhandling of Bond, nor does the intervention of a man who is either another Janus underling or simply a hotel guest. Bond and Natalya are interrupted in the finale however with the sudden appearance of Jack Wade, a team of Marines, and two helicopters.
  • Intimate Marks: Bond is told he'll know the American agent he'll be working with on a mission, Jack Wade, from a distinctive tattoo he bears. The tattoo turns out to be a rose and the word "Muffy" (the name of Jack's ex-wife) tattooed onto one of Jack's buttocks.
  • Invincible Villain: Boris thinks he is one. He's not.
    Boris: YES! I am EENVEENCEEBULL!
    Tanks of liquid nitrogen explode, freezing Boris in place
  • Iron Butt Monkey: Count the number of times Alec Trevelyan lives through something that should kill him. Before the opening credits, he's already been supposedly shot in the head (which was likely staged) and caught in an explosion. He later survives a great fall, and only dies because a satellite system drops on him.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • "For England." This line is used by Alec on his and Bond's mission in Archangelesk when they say it to each other. It's first repeated a few minutes later as a Meaningful Echo right before Alec is "shot" by Ourumov, but it then becomes an ironic echo twice. The first time is after Alec reveals himself as Janus and has Bond shot with a knock out dart. The second is right before Bond kills him by dropping him to his death. This time Alec asks it to Bond, which enables Bond to turn it into a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
      Alec Trevelyan: For England, James?
      Bond: No. For me.
    • During the Archangelsk mission, Alec and James joke about it being "closing time" for the Russian base. When Alec reveals his survival to Bond, he repeats his comment, but this time he intends it to be closing time for Bond and "for England, James".
    • "Set timers. Six minutes." During the Archangelsk mission Alec tells Bond to set the explosives on the gas tanks for six minutes, but when Alec is captured, Bond changes the timers to three minutes. Later, when Bond and Natalya are trapped on Trevelyan's train base, which he's rigged to explode, he comes over the speaker and says "Good luck with the floor, James. I set the timers for six minutes. The same six minutes that you gave me. It was the least I could do for a friend." Which leads Bond to know that Trevelyan means "three minutes".
    • Boris does this to himself unintentionally with the line "I am invincible!" While at Severnaya programming computers, Boris jumps up and yells the line. He does so again in the same manner after surviving the destruction of Trevelyan's lair right before the liquid nitrogen tanks behind him explode and pour all over him.
    • After Bond beats Xenia at cards and introduces himself to her, Bond uses the line "The pleasure, I'm sure, was all mine." Later, after he survives her Murderous Thighs, Bond forces her to take him to Janus. After doing so, she says "Well, once again, the pleasure was all yours." Xenia then attempts to make this an ironic echo later when she attacks Bond in Cuba, saying, "This time, Mr. Bond, the pleasure will be all mine." right before her Karmic Death.
    • At one point, Trevelyan holds Natalya hostage and threatens to have her killed if Bond doesn't do as he says. Bond's response is "Kill her. She means nothing to me." Later, Trevelyan holds Bond at gunpoint and threatens to shoot him if Natalya doesn't undo her sabotage of the Goldeneye satellite. Natalya coolly replies "Kill him. He means nothing to me." Bond silently but wearily accepts the point.
  • Iron Lady: "I hear the new M ... is a lady?"
  • It's All My Fault: During his meeting with M, Bond personally blames himself for Trevelyan's death.
  • It's Personal:
    • Alec Trevelyan's motive for terrorism - his parents were sold out by the British government. Although Bond later suggests that Alec is merely using that as a thinly-veiled excuse to be a thief.
    • Bond's motive for going after Trevelyan later in the film: "No. For me."
    • Before leaving for Russia, M tells Bond, "Don't make it personal," in regards to Ourumov.
  • It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Bond remarks to Trevelyan, "It's too easy", having noticed that they've had zero difficulty in breaching what should be a very secure facility. He's right, of course, since the whole thing is a setup for Trevelyan's defection.
  • It Won't Turn Off: A variation ("It won't disconnect!"), the infiltration to Boris' server continues, despite him desperately ripping hardware out of it.
  • It Works Better with Bullets: A deleted scene involves Zukovsky's dealings with a Pakistani arms dealer who turned out to be rather inept. The dealer tries to sell him a Glock, which Zukovsky quickly identifies as a Chinese knockoff, and after a few moments he ends up holding the dealer up with that pistol - but when he pulls the trigger, nothing happens, because the knockoff's firing pin was too short.
  • I Was Never Here: Bond asks Jack Wade why he chose to meet him in the Caribbean before he entered Cuba to track down Janus. Wade answers, "I am not here. The CIA has no knowledge, no involvement, nothing to do with your insertion into Cuba, if you catch my drift."
  • I Will Only Slow You Down: In the opening sequence, Alec is captured by the Russians, but without hesitation calls out to Bond to leave him behind and carry on with the mission. It turns out that his lack of hesitation was because he was working with the Russians all along and wasn't in any real danger.
  • Just a Stupid Accent: Obviously, all Russians speak English with a Russian accent, even when everyone present is Russian.
  • Just Following Orders: Trevelyan is angry at Bond for Bond's loyalty being "always to the mission, never to his friend."
  • Just Train Wrong: : As Janus' Soviet missile train was filmed in the UK and is a converted BR one, its gauge is too narrow given that the USSR used a different railway gauge.
  • Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: General Ourumov kills Defence Minister Dimitri Mishkin after he accuses Ourumov of being responsible for the attack on Severnaya and theft of the Goldeneye key. Ourumov invokes this trope as he openly states his plan to cover up the murder.
    Ourumov: Defence Minister Dimitri Miskin, murdered by British agent James Bond... himself shot, while trying to escape. GUARDS!
  • Karmic Death:
  • Kick the Dog: Ouromov's moment is in the chemical plant when he shoots a Soviet soldier who gets nervous and fires on Bond using chemical tanks as cover after Ouromov orders the soldiers not to. Possibly justified, as Ouromov is worried that the resulting explosion/chemical leak will kill them all.
  • Kill and Replace: Part of Janus' scheme to steal the Goldeneye involves Xenia seducing and killing an admiral so that Ouromov can use his identity to get on the frigate where the Tiger helicopter is, then Xenia killing the pilots and taking their place so they can steal the helicopter.
  • Kill It with Ice: A vat of liquid nitrogen is how Boris Grishenko meets his end. So much for being invincible.
  • Kill Sat: The titular weapons are single-shot EMP-based. The first one is used to cover up the theft of the satellite control codes by destroying the operations base. Trevelyan plans to use the second one to knock out London (and all evidence of a grand electronic bank raid to be completed first), but was stopped by Natalya's sabotage of its guidance system.
  • Kung-Shui: "You have a licence to kill, not to break the traffic laws!" was how Q put it... Then again, he says something along the lines of blowing up any vehicles he gets into being a "standard procedure" for an MI6 agent... it is uncertain if this is meant to be ironic.
  • Lame Pun Reaction:
    • Natalya's reaction to Boris's dirty jokes.
    • From Valentin to Bond.
      Valentin: James Bond. Charming, sophisticated secret agent. Shaken but not stirred?
    • Even Bond almost groans at one of his own lines.
      Bond: [struggling against bonds] I'm a little tied up!
  • Lampshade Hanging: Cold War spy drama and modern gender politics had moved on from the Bond template, prompting a lot of this throughout the film. Trevelyan asks Bond if their missions "For England" were really worth it, and whether all the vodka martinis and willing women dull the pain. The new M is a woman and considers Bond a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" and "relic of the Cold War." Natalya becomes angry at being the Girl of the Week. Even Moneypenny tells Bond she has a life outside him. However, despite bringing up all these points, the formula plays out as usual.
  • Large Ham:
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: While Natalya and James are making out, Natalya says, "Suppose someone is watching?" Then Wade, two dozen marines, and three helicopters emerge from cover.
  • Leave No Witnesses: Ourumov and Xenia massacre the staff of the Bunker to ensure none of them could accuse the former of stealing the second eponymous satellite. The exceptions are Boris Grishenko, intentionally spared and offered a new job with Janus; and Natalya, who knew how to survive it.
  • Left for Dead: 006 in the pre-credits sequence. This is a weird example. 006 was shot point blank in the head by Ourumov, so Bond was really only leaving a dead body behind in the explosion. Or so he thought. 006 had Ourumov fake his death, a plan which almost went off the rails when 007 not only escaped, but set the timers on the planted explosives for three minutes instead of six, nearly killing them both. In the end, 006 was only Left for Dead by accident and unknowingly on Bond's part.
  • Licensed Pinball Table: Click here.
  • Lighter and Softer: Pierce Brosnan was a considerably less serious Bond, using much more humour than his predecessor, Timothy Dalton. The overall tone of the film is also lighter and less serious than the preceding Licence to Kill, with less graphic violence and no murder/serious injury of Bond's friends.
  • Literal Metaphor: Bond and Q invoke this trope when demonstrating the pen bomb.
    Bond: They always said "the pen was mightier than the sword".
    Q: Thanks to me, they were right.
  • Lock and Load: Bond hands a gun to Natalya and asks if she can use it. She promptly checks if everything is in working order and answers "Yes."
  • Lonely Funeral: Predicted. Janus says that when Bond dies, the only people who will show up to his funeral will be Moneypenny and "a few tearful restaurateurs".
  • MacGuffin: The GoldenEye key.
  • Made of Explodium:
    • The effects of the GoldenEye satellite don't just cause affected electrical systems to cease functioning, it causes them to violently explode, to the point where Natalya comes far closer to being killed by the exploding equipment in the Severnaya facility than she does by a MiG crashing into the facility and causing its transmitter dish to fall through the roof.
    • Bond's jamming a piece of metal in the gears of the transmitter dish in the film's climax somehow causes it to catch fire and then blow up.
  • Magic Countdown: A subtle example — the famous three-minute countdown lasts for three and a half minutes; the three minutes are up while Bond's in the middle of his free-fall stunt, so the explosion politely holds off until he's finished so as not to distract the audience.
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Bond and Natalya are strapped down in the Tiger helicopter, and the missiles are set to fire and then return back at them. They escape before the explosion, but the Russian authorities show up immediately, and the Minister of Defence accuses them of being involved in both. Presumably, they were supposed to find only the bodies and assume that the two of them were the criminals they were after, and write the whole thing off as a weapon malfunction.
    • While being interrogated by the Minister of Defence, Natalya reveals that General Ourumov was behind the theft of the helicopter and the destruction of the Goldeneye base. Ourumov crashes the interrogation, kills the Minister, and states his plan to make it look like Bond and Natalya killed the Minister and were then shot while escaping.
  • Manchild: M describes Bond's brand of charisma as "boyish," and Q says "Grow up, 007!" in exasperation. Alec asks Bond, "Why can't you just be a good boy and die?", and Natalya accuses him of being "boys with toys."
  • Meaningful Echo:
    • "For England, James," the first time it's echoed by Trevelyan.
    • After beating Xenia at Baccarat, Xenia tells Bond in regards to the money he's won, "Enjoy it, while it lasts" to which Bond replies that those are the very words he lives by.
    • When Natalya is held at gunpoint by Ouromov, Bond attempts to bluff by saying "Kill her. She means nothing to me." She gets to say those words right back to his face when they get captured in Cuba, and he's the one being held at gun point.
    • Bond's final showdown with Janus has several non-verbal echoes of the opening action sequence, such as a moment where the villain believes he has Bond cornered, only for his gloat to be interrupted by Bond hitting a switch and revealing an escape route.
    • When Bond and Natalya are in the Caribbean, Natalya looks relaxed and says there's surely not another person in 25 miles, only for Wade to drop out of the sky with instructions for getting into Cuba. After they've successfully defeated Janus, Bond and Natalya start making out; Natalya hesitates, in case somebody sees them, and Bond echoes back to her that there's surely not another person in 25 miles — and is proven wrong once again by Wade.
  • Meaningful Name/Take That!:
    • In the 60's, one of the fiercest critics of the early Bond films was a guy named John Trevelyan. One wonders where Alec Trevelyan got his name.
    • As for Janus, The Reveal is that he is Trevelyan. Now consider that Janus is usually depicted as being two-faced.
  • Midair Collision: When the EMP goes off, it destroys the guidance systems of the three fighter jets pursuing the getaway helicopter, and two collide after one veers off course.
  • Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Theft of a prototype helicopter → crippling London with an EMP-based Kill Sat to cover up a massive electronic bank robbery. In this case, "minor" is relative, as the theft of a top secret prototype would itself normally be an emergency of the utmost national importance.
    • This is a trope used in basically every Bond film. However this time it gets lampshaded in Bond's briefing with M where he points out that the murder of a NATO admiral, followed by the risky theft of a prototype helicopter with very specific features, should’ve been taken much more seriously by the analysts.
  • Mistaken for Exhibit: Non-artistic example: as Q demonstrates numerous lethal items disguised as mundane objects, 007 picks up a sub sandwich and examines it. Q snatches it away hurriedly.
    Q: Don't touch that! [Beat] That's my lunch.
  • Mobile Shrubbery: The ending has Bond and Natalya being picked up by a squad of US Marines. He never knows the Marines are there..until they stand up on orders from Jack Wade. For bonus points, Bond was so sure they were alone they were about to get it on!
  • Modesty Bedsheet: Played so straight it almost seems to be lampshading this trope—the sheets are extremely low on Bond's waist, but they're practically up to Natalya's chin.
  • Moment Killer: Agent Wade showing up with the marines just as Bond and Natalya are starting to celebrate getting through the finale alive.
  • Mood Whiplash: When Bond, who is responsible for the bullet wound in Valentin's leg that causes him to limp everywhere, asks Valentin for a favour:
    Valentin: [laughing boisterously with his men] He wants a favour! Did you hear that?! He wants me to do him a favour! [instantly threatening] My knee aches. Every single day. Twice as bad when it is cold. Do you have any idea how long the winter lasts in this country?
  • Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed with Natalya Simonova. While she is played by the undeniably attractive Izabella Scorupco, she wears dowdy office clothing for much of the film, and combat fatigues for the rest. There is exactly one scene of her in a bikini, but the camera does everything it can to focus on her face instead.
    • Played straight with Onatopp, who is played by Famke Janssen to be appealing from her first appearance - flashing a killer red-lipped grin with her hair whipping in the wind - and proceeds to have outfits that are alternately revealing - her casino dress highlighting her cleavage, her lingerie and sauna robe highlighting her in general - or essentially rooted in fetish gear - her leather Severnaya uniform and the mesh top/bra/combat pants gear in the jungle; she also has a number of moments basically panting, moaning or screaming her pleasure at causing harm or killing.
  • Mugged for Disguise: Xenia and another accomplice (implied to potentially be Ourumov) steal the Tiger helicopter during a demonstration this way. Xenia stops the two pilots, tells them she's got a surprise from their friends at the barracks, then pulls a pistol and shoots both of them before stealing their uniforms and helmets.
  • Multi-Track Drifting: The tank chase has Bond chasing after Ouromov in a "Model T" (a Russian T-series heavy tank, that is). Extra style points for lifting a memorial statue, sticking it in an overhang, and crushing some cars on his tail. That Ouromov is in a small Soviet-bloc car just makes it even more awesome.
  • Murderous Thighs: Xenia kills targets by making them enjoy a good squeeze from her thighs mid-coitus.
  • Murder-Suicide: Trevelyan's father killed his wife and then himself from the shame of the British government's betrayal and survivor guilt.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • This is the first of the Bond films not to take its title from one of the novels or short stories, as the filmmakers had already used all the useful ones that they had the rights to. Instead, it's named after Ian Fleming's house.
    • The plot element of the Bond girl working on the guidance system for the superweapon and foiling the villain's plans by sabotaging the guidance system comes from the novel Moonraker.
    • Xenia's M.O. of crushing men to death with her thighs is the same as that of another female Soviet assassin, whose MI6 file forms part of a throwaway gag in The Living Daylights.
    • Trevelyan insulting Bond for his parents having "had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident" is a detailed pulled from the literary Bond's backstory.

     Tropes N-Z 
  • Near-Miss Groin Attack: When Bond arrives in Russia, he goes to a crime lord called Valentin Zukovsky, with whom he has a history, for information. Unfortunately, that history includes Bond shooting Zukovsky in the knee and stealing his girlfriend, a fact that hasn't been forgotten, and Zukovsky pulls out a gun and shoots at Bond's legs. Bond dodges to one side, then the other, then frantically shouts that he has something to offer for information as Zukovsky aims at his crotch.
  • Nerd Glasses: Boris wears glasses fixed with red adhesive tape.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
    • Boris foolishly plays with Q's grenade pen, which causes a huge explosion, providing a distraction for Bond to escape, though to be fair, there was really no way he could have known.
    • If they hadn't shot down Bond's plane, he never would have found the secret base. He was even saying how he was about ready to give up just as the missile hit.
    • Xenia also gives Bond the lead to Trevelyan. By insisting on her usual methods in order to achieve orgasm during her fight with Bond, she gives him the chance to disable her. She could have just brought a gun to the steam room fight, straddled him and then shot him. But then it wouldn't be enjoyable for Xenia.
  • Nonchalant Dodge: During an action sequence, Bond just barely flicks his head to dodge a bullet, continuing to concentrate on setting a timing device.
  • Noodle Incident:
  • No One Could Survive That!: Alec Trevelyan in the Soviet chemical plant pretended to get his head blown off by General Ourumov, then Bond blows up the chemical plant, which Bond naturally assumes burned Trevelyan's body. The only damage Trevelyan takes is a permanently scarred right cheek.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Trevelyan keeps drums of aircraft fuel and vats of cryogenic liquid in the same room as the workstations from which he controls everything.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Defence Minister Mishkin thinks this is the case with the GoldenEye, but he is oh so wrong.
  • No Sympathy: He talks about the Lienz Cossacks, who worked as Nazi collaborators during WWII, then defected to Britain in hopes of avoiding Stalin's wrath. Instead, they were deported back to Russia, and many of them died in the gulags. Bond claims it was "not exactly our finest hour", and while Valentin agrees, he considers the Cossacks ruthless people who got what they deserved. Bond later points this out to Ourumov, claiming that Trevelyan will eventually betray him. Ourumov is startled by this revelation, but is turned into a sacrificial lamb anyways by Trevelyan and is killed before he can fully react.
  • Not a Game: Natalya says this to Boris in Cuba about the use of the GoldenEye when she's captured.
    Natalya: This is not one of your games, Boris! Real people will die! You pathetic little worm.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: German actor Gottfried John as General Ourumov doesn't really appear to be attempting a Russian accent, but fortunately he doesn't sound too obviously German so most English speaking viewers probably wouldn't notice. This is also the case with French actor Tchéky Karyo as Russian Defence Minister Dimitri Mishkin, but to be fair, it's probably not easy to speak in a language that's not your own and do a foreign accent at the same time.
  • Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: The best use of "I am invincible!" is delivered by Boris Grishenko, who has it as his Character Catchphrase. When he survives the destruction of Trevelyan's base after the second Goldeneye satellite smacked into the atmosphere, he utters the line, and immediately gets frozen to death when some tanks of liquid nitrogen explode right behind him. Also a Chekhov's Gun, as the liquid nitrogen tanks obviously been there the whole time. (It serves as coolant for the computers.)
  • Not Quite Dead: One of the Severnaya techs survives Xenia's massacre, and once Xenia and Ourumov notice he's alive, he manages to push the red mayday button before Xenia shoots him dead for real.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Trevelyan chastises Bond for being "Her Majesty's loyal terrier" who clings to outdated ideals, yet as pointed out by Bond, "mad little" Alec himself is equally chained to the past as 007 is, considering his Evil Plan centres around settling an old grudge against England.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: Zig-Zagged; Alec falls from a great height and lands onto a concrete pool floor, but still manages to survive despite snapping his leg and visibly smashing his back; the only reason we don't see the full severity of the fall is because he is promptly crushed by the scenery.
  • Novelization: By John Gardner. It follows the film pretty closely, but with some changes as it was based on a near-final script draft:
    • The book features 006 and 007 receiving their briefing from the previous M, Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, before the mission to the chemical weapons factory. If this is counted as part of continuity, it would seem to confirm that the M played by Robert Brown is the same character played by Bernard Lee.
    • Prior to Bond's bungee jump, he severs communication lines and shoots a few guards.
    • Xenia drives a yellow Ferrari in Monte Carlo, not a red one.
    • Chuck Farrel is an American, not a Canadian. He also holds the lower rank of Rear Admiral, rather than an Admiral as in the film. The change of nationality was to secure production assistant from the US military.
    • Bill Tanner's title was revealed to have been changed by the new M from Chief-of-Staff to "Senior Analyst".
    • When breaking into his nightclub, Valentin Zukovsky observes Bond on security cameras and was able to anticipate his arrival.
    • Bond and Onatopp have sex in the bathhouse, with the writing suggesting the latter forcing herself on Bond and him being unable to resist, until she starts to crush him. There's also a nod to Goldfinger, with the mook who intervenes shown reflected in the glass of Bond's watch.
    • Natalya's watch was a graduation present from her parents.
    • Mishkin's first name is Viktor, not Dmitri as in the film.
    • A scene is added between the escape from the train and the trip to Cuba were Bond and Natalya sleep overnight in a St. Petersburg motel and are smuggled out of Russia the next day by Jack Wade.
    • There are many references to Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Chuck Farrel is described as looking similar to Nicholas, Viktor Mishkin works in Nicholas' old palace, James Bond runs over a statue of Czar Nicholas in St. Petersburg, and Alec Trevelyan lives in a replica of his train car.
    • Bond makes reference to a previous adventure in which an unnamed villain left an unnamed Bond Girl without the use of her legs.
  • No, You:
    • General Ouromov charges into the interrogation room just as Simonova reveals that he is responsible for the destruction of the Goldeneye base.
      General Ourumov: Defence minister, I must protest! This is my investigation! You're out of order!
      Dimitri Mishkin: From what I'm hearing it is you who is out of order!
    • Later, when Bond confronts Trevalyan:
      Trevalyan: Why can't you just be a good boy and die?
      Bond: You first.
  • Obligatory Joke: Subverted with James when he meets Natalya, while bound to a helicopter pilot's chair as the helicopter launches missiles at itself.
    Bond: I'm a little tied up... never mind.
  • Obsession Song: "You'll never know/how I watched you from the shadows as a child..." Tina Turner's Thematic Theme Tune, written by Bono and The Edge, has some pretty stalkerrific lyrics.
  • Obvious Stunt Double:
    • Even when not pointed out thanks to the commentary, the recent remasters of the film have made it obvious that it is not Famke Janssen kicking Pierce Brosnan around or pushing him onto the bench during the distance shots of the spa encounter. During a December 2020 rewatch Janssen expressed unawareness of this, particularly as she managed to break a rib while filming the scene herself.
    • The very first shot of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond isn't him, it's pretty obviously a stuntman jumping off the dam.
  • Offscreen Airplane Pull-up: Bond gets on a failing plane and is struggling at the controls to gain altitude. Cut to an exterior shot of the plane failing, and it descends out of view obscured by a mountain. Did it crash? No! Miraculously the plane comes back into view as it recovers its altitude and flies over the ridge and up and out of the frame again.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Bond when he sees Alec being held at gunpoint by Ouromov.
    • Natalya when she realises Severnaya is about 4 seconds away from destruction. Then, kaboom.
    • Ourumov reports his "findings" to Defence Minister Mishkin regarding the destruction of Severnaya. When told that Boris is not accounted for among the dead, Ourumov shrugs him off as Boris's survival was already arranged. But then Mishkin adds on that Natalya is also missing, meaning there's a witness who can implicate him and Xenia.
    • Natalya again. She's relieved to find Boris at the church where they planned to meet, then sees Xenia (who she recognizes from the Severnaya shoot-out) with him and in about one second realizes he's in on the whole thing.
    • Bond in the Tiger helicopter when he sees the missiles it's just fired have just turned around and are now heading back to it.
    • Ouromov again when he sees the tank crash through the wall. The novelization expands on this and explains that Ouromov is a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War and had a bad experience with a tank.
    • Boris after receiving the message on his computer telling him the transmitter dish is malfunctioning.
  • Old Soldier:
    • Bond, which is part of M's verbal beatdown of him when she refers to him as "A relic of the Cold War".
    • Valentin is both one himself, being an ex-KGB agent, and lampshades this about Bond when he asks Bond, "So, still working for MI6 or have you finally decided to join the 21st century?"
    • Ouromov as well, whose age is showing.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted Both the Russian Defence Minister and one of Zukovsky's henchmen are named Dimitri (although Zukovsky's henchman is only a very minor part)
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Sean Bean's northern accent shows through Trevelyan's refined British tones when he orders the train driver to "Ram 'im!"
  • Orgasmic Combat: Xenia Onatopp is downright overt about it, calling deadly combat "foreplay". A notable example is when she blows away an entire roomful of technicians and officers at Severnaya with an automatic weapon, moaning with pleasure while doing so. Note the truly great Eye Take from General Ouromov.
  • Outrun the Fireball: Done by Natalya after the GoldenEye fires on Severnaya. Later by Bond and Natalya in Trevelyan's base in Cuba after Boris unknowingly triggers Q's pen grenade, destroying a ton of the base.
  • Out with a Bang: Xenia only feels pleasure when killing people, and does it while having sex. This results in a Karmic Death for her. It says a lot to reason that shooting people is probably Xenia's method of masturbation.
  • Paid Harem: Valentin Zukovsky has a strip club with several floozies. One of whom is a hilariously tone-deaf Minnie Driver.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Boris, supposedly one of the greatest hackers in the Soviet Union and able to crack the United States' government databases, uses simple, one-word passwords and dares his rival, Natalya, to guess them by giving her simple riddles. It obviously backfires when he gives her the riddle "You sit on it, but you can't take it with you," for his personal password. Bond determines that the answer is "chair" in less than a second, allowing Natalya to track Boris's position and find the terrorists' secret hideout. Justified in that up until this point all the answers were "dirty words" (usually female anatomy). Natalya kept thinking dirty and failing, whereas Bond, not having known Boris gets it on the first try.note 
  • Pater Familicide: Alec Trevelyan's backstory has his father kill his mother and himself so that they won't have to live with the shame of having survived the Soviet purge of Lienz Cossacks.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil:
    • Valentin tells Bond a story about the Lienz Cossacks, who worked with the Nazi government against the Soviets during the Second World War, then helped the British against the Nazis when it became obvious the Nazis were going to lose. After the war, the British government handed the Cossacks over to Stalin, and many of them died in the gulags. Bond claims it was "not exactly our finest hour", and while Valentin agrees, he considers the Cossacks ruthless people who got what they deserved.
    • Trevelyan views his actions with the GoldenEye satellite as this.
  • Peek-a-Boo Corpse: While Bond is searching Xenia Onatopp's boat for clues about what she's doing in Monte Carlo, he opens a wardrobe and the corpse of a dead admiral falls out at him, revealing that the admiral who the audience just saw being welcomed to a restricted demonstration is an impostor.
  • The Pen Is Mightier: Played with. Q whips up a bomb shaped like an ordinary ballpoint pen. Three clicks of the button arms it, three more disarms it.
    Bond: They always aid the pen was mightier than the sword.
    Q: Thanks to me, they were right!
  • Percussive Maintenance: Double Subverted. After Jack Wade's car breaks down, he tinkers with it, finally asking Bond for a hammer ("No, the bigger one, the sledge.") He leans over and lightly taps the engine with the gigantic hammer, then steps back and swings it full strength, making it run again.
  • Playing Possum: During their escape from the Cuban satellite facility, Natalya plays dead in an elevator to lure in a guard, allowing Bond to ambush him from the ceiling and take his weapons.
  • Pocket Rocket Launcher: The requisite "Q's Laboratory" scene starts off where Q has a rocket launcher hidden in a leg cast he got from a hunting accident, which reminds Bond of the "Ghetto Blaster" from Live and Let Die.
  • Post-Rape Taunt:
    • Trevelyan doesn't actually rape Natalya (as far as we see) but does force a kiss on her and then gloat to Bond:
      Trevelyan: Lovely girl. Tastes... like strawberries.
      Bond: I wouldn't know.
      Trevelyan: I would.
    • Also handled weirdly with regards to the sauna scene involving Onatopp; The sexual connotations take on a squicky tone when you realize that Xenia basically forces Bond into an unwilling situation to gain sexual pleasure. After the scene? Bond deploys a witty one liner and contributes to the film's ongoing joke between the two of them; then again, this is Bond we're talking about, so it might not have been so unwilling; he himself called it "foreplay."
  • Pragmatic Villainy:
    • This is how Bond gets Zukovsky help him despite the latter's grudge for crippling his knee during the Cold War. Bond provides intel on a rigged crime deal going down this afternoon — a deal which, with this information, will net Zukovsky a tidy profit from the sting operation. In exchange, Zukovsky will set up a meeting with Janus for Bond — which will settle the debts between them and leave Janus owing Zukovsky a favor.
    • The way Trevelyan tries to kill Bond and Natalya first is by blowing them up in a helicopter to make it look like they crashed. When asked "Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?", Trevelyan replies that in such a situation, the bodies having bullet holes from short-range handgun fire would raise too many eyebrows.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Bond drops in through a ceiling panel in a toilet stall, and says, "Beg your pardon. I forgot to knock." before knocking out the newspaper-reading soldier who was relieving himself.
  • Precocious Crush: The film's title song makes mention of this, with the lyrics, "You'll never know how I watched you from the shadows as a child."
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
    • Wouldn't be Bond without them.
      Helicopter Pilot: I think I've gone to heaven.
      Xenia: Not yet. [shoots both pilots and steals their uniforms]
    • Prior to Trevelyan's death:
      Alec Trevelyan: For England, James?
      Bond: No. For me.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: When Alec is shot by Ourumov, there is no blood and not even a hole. Justified in that he faked his death.
  • Product Placement: The Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) EC665 Tiger, as well as the latest Aston Martin DB5, and IBM computers. Interestingly enough, the Tiger wouldn't become operationally ready for another 13 years, so at the time it really was a prototype. The BMW Z3 - although not a favourite of Bond fans - was also only a prototype but actively spurred sales of the vehicle despite appearing in two short sequences on film. Perrier also got in on the act with a truck being prominently obliterated during the tank chase.
    • More significantly, GoldenEye marks the first film where Bond wears an Omega Seamaster. This partnership, which has lasted to this day, is counted as one of the things that helped save Omega during the 90s, bringing the brand back to prominence, while forever associating the line with the franchise (prior to this, the most recognizable "Bond watch" was the Rolex Submariner that Sean Connery wore).
  • Pronouncing My Name for You: When Bond mispronounces Natalya Simonova's name, she points out, "Natalya Sim-yon-ova".
  • Psycho for Hire: Xenia Onatopp. In addition to squeezing people to death with her legs during sex, the insane glee with which she carried out the massacre scene at Severnaya has been compared to orgasm, to the point where one may wonder if she was wielding an assault rifle or a sex toy. Given the expression her employer Ourumov has watching this, he's wondering the same thing.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Xenia Onatopp is a female example of this. Her sadomasochistic sexual proclivities, coupled with her overall lack of conscience and sadistic glee in killing innocents, would seem to qualify her as an insane psychopath.
  • Punch Catch: After Boris gets into a fight with Natalya at the Janus Base in Cuba, he walks towards her after the guards restrain her and says "Don't ever, do that again!" which Natalya replies with "This is not one of your games Boris, real people will die! You pathetic little worm!". Boris tries to punch her out of anger, but Alec Trevelyan catches his arm just in time and orders him to check the computer to see if she did anything that would stop their plan.
  • Punny Name: This is a Bond movie after all, so at least one of the girls has one. Xenia definitely likes to be Onatopp of things, would you say? It's even used in Moneypenny's message to Bond when he's in his car after meeting Xenia at the casino. (This works even better in the German version, where Bond butchers her name into "Ohne Top", "topless".) Now this is the same franchise that brought us Pussy Galore, after all.
  • Railing Kill: It occurs in the opening firefight when several Russian soldiers are attacking Bond and Trevelyan as they plant explosives. One of the guards is shot as he crashes through the door to the staircase leading down to the floor, and his momentum causes him to crash through an oddly-placed gate in the railing...leading to open air.
  • Ramming Always Works: Trevelyan attempts this when Bond parks his tank on the track that his train base is heading towards. Trevelyan orders the train to go to full speed to ram Bond. This does succeed in destroying the tank, but Bond fires the tank's main gun at the locomotive first, causing it to derail when it hits the tank. Xenia is, of course, entirely too excited by this turn of events.
  • Rapid-Fire Typing: Trevelyan orders Boris to perform some necessary computer work and instructs a soldier to kill him if he moves. Boris starts typing fast, then the soldier motions with his gun. Boris types faster. There was an especially grievous example earlier, when Boris performs rapid fire typing with only one hand, while spinning a (grenade) pen in the other. While doing so, he never stops to correct any mistakes — because he is that good.
    • Earlier in the film has a much more egregious example. When first introduced you can actually see the screen and you see him type and hear a ridiculous number of keystrokes over several seconds but only the short phrase 'Send spike' appears on the screen.
  • Rasputinian Death: Trevelyan suffers a spectacularly gruesome and Rasputinian Death. Bond deliberately drops him from a giant satellite antenna, and we see him hit the ground and break every bone in his body. But he doesn't die until the antenna explodes and comes crashing down in flames right on top of him, as he watches, screaming the whole time.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Defence Minister Mishkin, who lightens up after issuing some requisite threats to Bond. It's unfortunate for Bond and Natalya Ourumov kills Mishkin before he can help them.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • Judi Dench's new M verbally dismantles the new Bond in the first third of the movie. As Bond's first female boss in the series, and as a woman considerably older than Bond, M takes the Broken Base Audience Surrogate up to eleven by telling him exactly what she thinks of him as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" and "a relic of the Cold War." This may be exactly what some viewers thought when the movie premiered, because of world events in between this film and the last one, 1989's Licence to Kill. As in, "This is ANOTHER James Bond movie?"
    • Bond also gets one from Alec Trevelyan in the statue park.
    • Bond eventually returns fire, distilling Alec's plan down to just a bank robbery, and then later calling out Alec's motivation as revenge against a betrayal decades in the past made by people who may not even be alive, let alone in governmental positions.
    • Natalya also gives a short but effective one to Boris.
      Natalya: This is not one of your games! Real people will die, you pathetic little worm!
  • Recycled Soundtrack: Eric Serra reused some of his cues from The Professional, including the end credits song "The Experience of Love".
  • Red Herring: Q waxes lyrical about the features of the new Bondmobile, none of which are used in the film.
  • Red Right Hand: Alec Trevelyan uses the nickname "Janus" because of scars covering half of his face.
  • Red Scare: Subverted. Ourumov looks like he's trying to revive the Soviet Union with himself at the head. However, he's only trying to make money by assisting Trevelyan's real plan.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Alec Trevelyan chooses the name "Janus" in reference to his facial scars.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Alec Trevelyan as "006" and one of James Bond's oldest friends, in spite of never being mentioned by name, and once by number, in the entire series. Then again, this was supposed to be a soft reboot of a franchise which was never big on continuity in the first place, and Bond's fellow 00-agents never were in focus throughout the films.
  • Renegade Russian: Ourumov and the Janus Syndicate seem like this, but are just criminals.
  • Rescue Sex: Natalya's reaction when Bond saves her from the exploding train probably qualifies, though Bond does have to kiss her after her "it's what keeps you alone" speech.
  • Retraux: The Russia scenes look very much like they could be straight out of a Soviet-era work, even if everything has changed.
  • The Reveal: Alec Trevelyan revealing himself to be both still alive and Janus, which the movie's trailer gave away.
  • Revealing Cover-Up:
    • Bond quickly deduces that only a few members of the Russian government would possess the necessary clearance to gain access to and fire the Goldeneye weapon, and combined with the EMP-proof helicopter means that it was fired in order to cover the theft of the arming key.
    • Bond has just about concluded that Trevelyan's hidden satellite dish is in another location when they shoot down his plane.
  • Revealing Reflection: Bond spots a crewman on the Manticore sneaking up on him by his reflection in the brasswork.
    • The novelization also has Bond spotting Xenia's accomplice entering the sauna by his reflection in the glass of Bond's watch.
  • Revenge: Alec Trevelyan wants revenge against the British government for the betrayal of the Lienz Cossacks, which included his family, who believed that they were under British protection near the end of WWII, only to be sent back to Stalin who promptly had them all shot. The fact that he's also doing so to make himself a pile of money off the destruction of London using a nuclear satellite that used an electromagnetic pulse weapon is just the icing on the cake.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Bond points out that Trevelyan's grand plan would create massive economic chaos, all to get revenge on the British government of fifty years ago.
  • Rewatch Bonus: Bond and Trevelyan having zero difficulty breaching the facility, as well as Ouromouv allowing Bond to escape makes perfect sense when you realize the whole thing was a cover for Trevelyan's defection.
  • Ridiculously Potent Explosive: Bond's exploding pen takes the top half of a test dummy clean off. The MythBusters would later show that this is an impossible feat for a pen-sized explosive to do, even with modern explosives.
  • Right Behind Me: Happens to Tanner with M right as he's describing her as the "Evil Queen of Numbers."
    M: You were saying?
    Tanner: No, no I was just... just...
    M: Good. Because if I want sarcasm, Mr Tanner, I'll talk to my children, thank you very much.
  • Right Through the Wall: Xenia's outrageous enjoyment of her encounter with Bond in the spa is arguably what alerts the man who seems to try and intervene, depending on who you think he is and is working for.
  • Right Under Their Noses: Xenia and an accomplice steal the Tiger helicopter by shooting the real pilots, taking their uniforms, and taking off during a demonstration.
  • Rogue Agent: Alec Trevelyan, agent 006, who was believed dead and turns out to be the Big Bad.
  • Rule of Cool: The Chase Scene. Yes, that chase scene.
  • Rule of Sexy: Strictly speaking, the first fight scene between Bond and Xenia didn't have to occur near the pool of his hotel, but it did allow for a few Female Gaze shots of Bond swimming, and in addition to only being dressed in his swimming trunks, he's dripping wet during their confrontation. It's strongly implied that Xenia may be nude underneath her bathrobe.
  • Rump Roast: Xenia's buns get more than a little steamed during the sauna fight when Bond drops her, cheeks first, onto a hot radiator. She doesn't seem happy about it, though whether this is an exception to her usual Too Kinky to Torture persona or if she's just upset at being outmaneuvered is unclear.
  • Russian Guy Suffers Most: Trevelyan's motive.
  • Sadist: Xenia Onatopp, whether it be crushing her victims to death during sex or gleefully machine gunning a bunch of computer programmers.
  • Sadistic Choice: "So what's the choice, James? Two targets. Time enough for one shot? The girl or the mission?"
  • Same Content, Different Rating: The film was originally released on VHS in Britain as a 12-rated filmnote . In 2006, it was reclassified to a 15note , like its predecessor, most likely due to the strong Interplay of Sex and Violence between Bond and Xenia, and the notably Bloodier and Gorier violence. GoldenEye remains one of the few Bond films to have received a 15 rating.
  • Sarcasm Mode: Wouldn't be Bond without his usual snarking. However, Natalya gets in on it too; "I'm fine, by the way" and "By the way, I'm fine. Thanks for asking." respectively after the two times Bond rescues her and informs her of a bad situation.
  • Sauna of Death: Seemingly toyed with — Xenia Onatopp tries to seduce and kill Bond in a steam room. The novelization implies that the heat plays more of a role in Bond's initial inability to fight back.
  • Save the Villain: Subverted. Bond catches Trevelyan by the ankles just before he falls to his death (from his own superweapon, no less). "For England, James?" "No, for me" and he lets go. He survives the fall long enough to also die in a spectacular explosion.
  • The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: Xenia's M.O. is to sex you to death with her thighs. Except in her case seducing her targets is not purely out of ulterior motives, since she's also a sexual sadist.
  • Screen Shake: When the Soviet missile train crashes into the tank, the camera gets shaken pretty hard that Alec and the papers fall over.
  • Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: More like "Pierce Brosnan Is About To Shoot You". The film poster prominently features Bond pointing a gun directly at the viewer.
  • Sedgwick Speech: Boris. "Yes! I am inVEENcible!" *flash-frozen* Aaand now you're a coat rack.
  • See No Evil, Hear No Evil: James and Natalya are under the impression that they are alone in a field. When Jack Wade approaches and gives the reinforcements the command to come out of hiding, several men pop up out of the grass. While it may be plausible to never notice the soldiers, it's quite a stretch to not notice the multiple helicopters directly overhead, which can suddenly be heard the second they drop into view.
  • Serendipitous Survival: Two utterly mundane tasks—getting a cup of coffee, going outside for a cigarette—save Natalya's and Boris', respectively, lives when Ouromov and Onatopp show up at Severnaya. though we later learn, this was deliberate on Boris' part, given Ourumov's dismissal of him having survived the attack, and only worrying when Mishkin informs him that Natalya is also alive.
  • Sex Is Violence: Xenia clearly enjoys killing her victims a little too much. This is especially true of her fight with Bond himself.
    Xenia: [getting slammed into walls] Yes!... Yes!... Yes!
    Bond: [pulling a gun on her] No, no, no. No more foreplay. Take me to Janus.
  • Shadow Archetype: 006/Alec Trevelyan, Bond's former partner, who reappears from the dead and continually taunts 007 about his loyalty to England and Idiot Hero tendencies to lose allies and women during missions. Despite sharing many of Bond's qualities, Alec's personality shows the dangers of being stuck in the past with old grudges, as he claims a hatred for England for their (perceived) past transgressions.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Moneypenny, when she shows up at the office after a date, prompting a reaction from Bond.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Sort of. Trevelyan asks Bond if "all those vodka martinis silence the screams of all the men you've killed". Notably Bond's nonverbal reaction effectively concedes the point.
  • Sherlock Scan: An audible variation during Zukovsky's first scene when Bond does his *Click* Hello. Zukovsky, though he can't see Bond, recognizes the specific gun model just from the cocking sound. From there, Zukovsky quickly deduces it's likely Bond (as only a handful of men he knows personally use Walther PPKs — and Bond's the only one of them he hasn't killed yet). His deductions are ultimately confirmed when Bond responds.
  • Ship Tease: Xenia casually caresses Trevelyan on board the armoured train and the pair share a mischievous smile as they evacuate together. She's notably the only one of his conspirators he actually seems to enjoy the company of.
  • Shirtless Scene: Bond gets two: the first is during the pool scene, and the second is when he's in bed with Natalya.
  • Shoe Phone:
    • There's the classic moment when Q is in the middle of the gadget briefing, and Bond picks up and begins to examine a submarine sandwich.
      Q: (grabs it back out of 007's hands) Don't touch that! That's my lunch!
    • Trevelyan is an ex-00 agent, so he knows those tricks. (Boris doesn't, and ends up with the explosive pen).
  • Shoot the Hostage Taker: Bond frees Natalya on the train by shooting Ouromov, who was holding her hostage.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The commentary cites The Wild Bunch as an influence - Ouromov shooting the soldier who fires at Bond at Trevelyan's line, "If he moves, kill him".
    • The scene with a helicopter superimposed over a Bond waking up under it was stated to be one to Apocalypse Now.
  • Show Some Leg: Xenia distracts both a fat admiral and Bond with her sex appeal whilst actively trying (and succeeding, in the former) to break their ribs with her thighs.
  • Single-Season Country: All of the scenes set in Russia feature a snowy landscape.
  • Sinister Suffocation: Xenia Onatopp's sociopathy has been shown to frighten even her closest allies. Her favourite killing method involves wrapping her legs around the victim's torso and constricting them until the target cannot breathe.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: Played backwards and forwards in the sauna fight/makeout session, which zig-zags from fighting to kissing and back several times in the course of the scene.
  • The Sociopath: Xenia Onatopp's sadomasochistic sexual proclivities, coupled with her overall lack of conscience and murderous glee in killing innocents, would seem to qualify her as an insane psychopath.
  • Sociopathic Soldier: Xenia fits the soldier part by being an ex-Soviet fighter pilot, and the sociopath part is made very evident throughout the movie.
  • Soft Reboot: The only tie this film has with the previous 007 films, story-wise, is that the characters say there's a new M and that Felix Leiter has been replaced by another CIA contact after to the events of License to Kill. Otherwise, it may as well be a new continuity.
  • Soviet Superscience: The GoldenEye is a satellite-launched EMP weapon taken over by criminal elements in the Soviet space program command.
    • In Real Life, electronic warfare, including EMP weapons, was and still is a very active area of Russian military research, and theatre ballistic missiles with an EMP warheads are actually in the field testing right now.
  • So You Were Saying...?:
    • Said by M to Tanner after he describes her as "The Evil Queen of Numbers" as standing right behind him.
    • When Bond goes to Valentin's lounge and hears the click of Bond pointing a gun at his head.
      Valentin: Walther PPK. 7.65 mm. Only three men I know use such a gun. I believe I've killed two of them.
      Bond: Lucky me.
      [one of Valentin's mooks appears and points a gun to Bond's head]
      Valentin: I think not.
  • Space Is Noisy: The shots of the satellites in orbit are accompanied by low-pitched ambient noise.
  • Spoiler Opening: The fact that Sean Bean is billed first in the opening credits does make Trevelyan coming back alive a little less surprising.
  • Spy Satellites: After detonation of the first GoldenEye satellite above Severnaya fried all satellites in the area, the British secret service brings in another satellite to observe the wreckage... And Bond notices something moving.
  • Spy Speak: Half-parodied:
    Bond: In London, April's a Spring month.
    Jack Wade: Oh yeah? And what are you, the weatherman? I mean, for crying out loud... another stiff-ass Brit, with your secret codes and your passwords. One of these days you guys are gonna learn just to drop it.
    [Bond then holds him at gunpoint until he gives the correct response before introducing himself]
  • Start of Darkness: Janus (aka Alec Trevelyan) tells his to Bond in the statue park scene.
    Alec: We're both orphans, James. But where your parents had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident, mine survived the British betrayal and Stalin's execution squads... but my father couldn't let himself or my mother live with the shame of it. MI-6 figured I was too young to remember... and in one of life's little ironies, the son went to work for the government whose betrayal caused the father to kill himself and his wife.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Addressed by M when she accuses Bond of being "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur."
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Bond does one of these to a Russian soldier in the opening sequence, complete with Bond One-Liner. This is the first time in the movie the audience sees Bond's face, as played by newcomer Pierce Brosnan.
  • Stealth Insult: Bond and Tanner both think that M is more of an accountant or bean counter. During the briefing on Severnaya, the subject of GoldenEye comes up as a project the British suspected the Russians of working on at their secret facility, and when M tells them that British Intelligence's statistical analysts determined that the Russians had neither the finance nor the technology to create the GoldenEye weapon, Bond replies with "Numbers were never my strong suit."
  • Stock Foreign Names: Boris and Natalya.
  • Stock Sound Effects: Sound effects from the previous Bond films can be heard, with the late Jim Shields being the supervising sound editor for this film.
  • Stopped Clock: Natalya tries to deny having survived the GoldenEye attack against Severyna, but Bond notes that her watch is frozen on the time the attack took place.
  • Strawberry Shorthand: According to Treveylan, Natalya tastes like strawberries (to which Bond replies "I wouldn't know", as she hadn't fallen for him yet).
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: Appears in the credits sequence, but not the film itself; the title Kill Sat is so named because the plaque that turns it on has an amber-like stone.
  • Super Window Jump: Bond smashes through a window unaided in a highly dramatic fashion as he escapes interrogation. To be fair, it's a tiled, wood-framed window, where the frame breaks first.
  • Surprise Inspection Ruse: The villains are able to use this trope to barge their way into the Goldeneye satellite control center, calling their arrival "an unscheduled test" for a "war simulation", though in this case, General Ourumov's genuine authority is what allows him to order the officers to hand over the launch keys. Bond himself remarks on the theft that for a weapon as dangerous as Goldeneye, no random person can just "walk in and ask for the keys".
  • Surprise Vehicle: A lighthearted Moment Killer at the end, when three helicopters overhead cannot be heard before coming into view.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • 007's Cold War misogynistic personality only earns him derision from his new female boss.
    • Bond frequently gets Reason You Suck Speeches from many characters for clinging on to outdated ideals, his Failure Hero tendencies to lose allies on missions, Fatal Flaw for his status as The Casanova, and prioritizing his mission and loyalty to Queen and country over his friends and lovers.
    • On a major note, this and any Bond film made afterwards frequently question the relevance of spies like 007 after the Cold War.
  • Survivor Guilt: Trevelyan's parents survived the betrayal of the Lienz Cossacks, leading to Trevelyan's father ending up killing himself and his wife.
  • Tae Kwon Door: Bond slams the reinforced door in the archive on to one of the Soviet soldiers as he is trying to come through it.
  • Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Happens to Boris. He survives grenades, remote mines, a falling array, but then, while screaming "I AM INVINCIBLE"...
  • Take That!:
    • M pointing out that the satellite pictures at HQ are live, because unlike the American government, the British government prefers not to get its bad news from CNN. Ironically, in Skyfall Bond later gets some bad news via CNN in most releases. (And according to some sources in the military the Pentagon and White House actually do watch CNN and 24 hour news networks for breaking stories and updates.)
    • The teaser trailer has Pierce Brosnan swagger into the light until the audience can see his face. He looks at the camera and asks if we were expecting someone else. Possibly a reference to the 4th and previous Bond; Timothy Dalton. Alternatively it could be jab at the run-of-the-mill action stars popularized by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis, who had dominated the box office prior to GoldenEye and who, according to Brosnan and many others, just weren't as iconic or interesting as Bond.
  • Tank Goodness: While giving chase to Ourumov, Bond plows through St. Petersburg using a tank. So awesome the next movie decided to counter with Bond driving a smaller vehicle (a motorcycle).
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With the potential exception of Janus and Xenia, this is the one Bond movie where the main villains are clearly all just business associates and have no personal relationship with each other at all, and just happen to have useful skills or connections for their plan. It also averts the often used Blofeld Ploy and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.
    • Ourumov is clearly a little disturbed by how much pleasure Xenia has in killing everyone at the facility; a deleted scene establishes this trope as his dynamic with Boris as well, and what little we see of his relationship with Janus inclines to this too.
    • Alec and Boris clearly dislike one another; the latter is openly insolent towards the former, and the former has very little patience for the latter's pretensions. They each take some pleasure in the other's misfortune during the climax.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Boris dismisses any chance Natalya has of disabling the GoldenEye satellite, deriding her as a moron and a second level programmer who only has access to the guidance system. He apparently didn't stop to think that a guidance system is pretty important for a satellite, since it enables it to move... as they find out moments later when her program kicks in and sets it to burn up in the atmosphere.
    • Boris boasts "I AM EENVEENCIBLE!" Cue liquid nitrogen bath.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
    • What happens to Trevelyan. Bond drops him from the bottom point of a high and extremely large satellite dish. Trevelyan survives that... but the actions of Bond and Natalya dump the entire goddamn thing on him, on fire and all, complete with a splendid explosion.
    • The St. Petersburg chase scene involves Bond facing off against police cars... in a tank.
  • Thinking Tic: Boris has a tendency to fidget with his pen and click it when mulling something over. This turns out to be a Chekhov's Gun later when he has one of 007's pens which is actually a mini-bomb in hand while thinking.
  • Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: James Bond sneaks into a Soviet factory via an Air-Vent Passageway. He emerges into the facility's men's room through the "stink vent" on the ceiling. Somehow the Soviet officer perched on the porcelain throne doesn't detect Bond's entry until the British superspy can deliver a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Xenia seems to enjoy getting beaten up almost as much as killing people. Her fight scenes with Bond indicate that she wasn't going to stop fighting simply out of pain. Up until he burns her ass on a hot radiator. . . guess she was only into SOME types of pain, which is rather Truth in Television.
  • Tragic Villain: Alec Trevelyan/Janus wants revenge on the British government after it betrayed his parents, Lienz Cossacks, and sent them back to the USSR where Joseph Stalin had them all executed. Though Trevelyan and his family managed to escape the execution, Trevelyan's father was ashamed to have liven his life as a Lienz Cossack, and he purposely killed Trevelyan's mother and himself out of survivor's guilt.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The Reveal that the head of the Janus Syndicate is Alec Trevelyan back from the dead would have invokedmade an intriguing plot twist, if everything referencing the movie hadn't spoiled it.
  • Tranquil Fury: Although Trevelyan manages to brush it off, Bond clearly hits a nerve when he presses Trevelyan's Berserk Button by calling his plan as nothing but 'petty theft' and Trevelyan himself as 'a common thief'.
  • Translation Convention:
    • Despite the fact that it is mostly set in early Post-Soviet Russia, all of the computer screens, The Big Board and the e-mails sent and received are in English. (Boris even clues one of his passwords with a pun that makes sense only in English.) Likewise, all the Russian characters speak to each other in English, even when there are no non-Russian characters present. Oddly averted with the actual GoldenEye satellite, which is marked "CCCP" (the Cyrillic acronym for the USSR).
  • Try and Follow: During the vehicle chase, Ourumov orders his driver to turn down a narrow alley that their car barely fits through and which is far too narrow for the tank Bond is driving. Bond follows anyway, correctly counting on the tank being strong enough to break down the walls and widen the passage.
  • Try Not to Die: M's last words to Bond before he heads to Russia are, "Come back alive."
  • Tuckerization: Jack Wade is named after uncredited screenwriter Kevin Wade.
  • Two-Faced: Alec Trevelyan. The right side of his face was scarred in an explosion. Interestingly, he uses Janus as a code name, referencing a Roman god with two faces (one on the back of his head). Also a reference to his status as a double agent while working for MI-6.
  • Two-Keyed Lock: Needed to operate the GoldenEye satellites.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: Unusual for a Bond Girl, Natalya spends most of the first act in her own subplot, surviving the GoldenEye blast and figuring out a way to contact Boris. She doesn't actually meet Bond until she's first captured by Trevelyan about halfway through the movie.
  • Unconventional Vehicle Chase: After Natalya gets taken by Ourumov in a car, Bond steals one of the tanks in the yard and pursues them, with the tank causing sizable damage to the buildings around town.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Boris is contemptuous of any possible damage Natalya could have inflicted to Goldeneye, as she only has access to the guidance systems. Moments later, he's reminded why guidance is a very important function of an orbiting satellite.
  • Underwater Base: Trevelyan's base in Cuba. Double as an Elaborate Underground Base after it emerges.
  • Universal Driver's Licence: Bond drives a tank like a pro.
  • Variable Terminal Velocity: Bond drives a motorcycle over a cliff and catches a falling airplane with enough time to right it before it hits the ground. Truth in Television to some extent. The stuntman concerned actually skydived into the plane in the air. The plane wasn't unpowered, though, and a falling human would probably have a higher terminal velocity than a powered plane in flight position, what with, y'know, wings and all.
  • Victory Pose: Boris does this when he cracks a system or performs another feat of coding mastery. 'I am inwincible!' are his final words, uttered while in this pose, just before a tank of liquid nitrogen exploded and froze him solid still in his pose.
  • Viewer-Friendly Interface: Boris's computer interface has a bunch of graphical elements that exist mainly to help the audience understand what he's doing.
  • Villain Has a Point:
    • When Bond calls him out on his Evil Plan, Trevelyan points out his Failure Hero tendency to lose allies (especially women) on missions, and whether he has qualms killing people. He even (correctly) thinks Bond womanizes to hide the inner grief of losing the only woman he truly loved (Tracy di Vicenzo).
    • Earlier on when Alec first reveals himself, he makes a point to James that he is another expendable asset of a government that doesn't particularly appreciate him, and to a society that doesn't understand him. 007 dealing with this reality will become a major Central Theme in later films.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • When Trevelyan explains how he plans to steal from the Bank of England and cover it up with an EMP blast from the eponymous Kill Sat as part of his revenge against the British government for having his parents killed, Bond quips that it still "boils down to petty theft," and that he's nothing more than a "common thief", which does infuriate Trevelyan. Trevelyan's self-control finally dissolves when Natalya manages to sabotage the GoldenEye to stop it from detonating over London by guiding it away from London and out of orbit.
    • Boris, when Natalya has reprogrammed the GoldenEye satellite, resigning its fate to burn up in the atmosphere. Boris tries to reprogram it... but can't break her access codes. He promptly flips his borscht.
      Boris: GIVE ME THE CODES, NATALYA! GIVE THEM TO ME!!!
    • Boris again, losing the connection with the satellite while he has a pistol pointed at his head.
      Boris: [violently shaking the monitor] SPEAK TO ME!
  • Walking Spoiler: Alec Trevelyan, Agent 006 and Bond's friend who was killed 9 years prior to the main events of the movie. It's later discovered that he's still alive and is the identity of Janus.
  • Watch the Paint Job: Averted. The BMW Z3 gets the usual rundown in Q's laboratory, but never once gets used in a chase scene (as the vehicle used in the film was the only prototype available, and BMW wasn't about to go trashing it before it went out to the market). Instead, we got a tank.
  • Weaponized Car: Bond has a BMW Z3 that is supposedly armed to the teeth but none of its gadgets are actually used in the film. Despite this, it was still a big sell, and in fact, the limited edition "007 Model" sold out within a day of being available to order.
  • Weapon Stomp: Bond does this to Trevelyan's AK-74 during the train scene.
  • We Can Rule Together: Subverted by Trevelyan's towards Bond.
    Alec: Oh, by the way, I did think of asking you to join my little scheme, but somehow I knew that 007's loyalty was always to the mission. Never to his friend.
  • We Have Reserves: Ourumov has no qualms about expending a large number of his soldiers so Trevelyan can fake his own death and defect.
  • We Used to Be Friends: James Bond and Alec Trevelyan/006 once had this dynamic, but once Alec betrayed England and MI-6, the two became bitter enemies.
  • Wham Line: We hear, "Hello, James," and Bond just about goes into shock as Alec Trevelyan steps out of the shadows.
  • What Is Going On?: After the Kill Sat attacks on Severnaya, Tanner has this exchange:
    Tanner: What the bloody Hell was that?
  • What Measure Is a Mook?:
    • When the Russians have taken Bond into custody, believing him to be responsible for the attack on Severnaya as the result of a frame job by the Big Bad, Bond shoots lots of guards during his escape. Even though they're shooting to kill, the guards are decent guys who are only doing their jobs. The sole reason they are trying to stop Bond is because they've been led to believe he is a terrorist with lots of innocent blood on his hands, including that of their Defence Minister after Ourumov kills him and blames it on Bond, though given the situation, Bond's options are limited.
    • Minor Lampshade Hanging by Alec Trevelyan when he asks Bond "if all those vodka martinis silence the screams of all the men you've killed," implying that Bond does actually feel guilt about killing mooks.
  • Why We Are Bummed: Communism Fell: Poor Bond. He's less than pleased with this state of affairs — particularly the part about kissing up to the same Russians he's screwed over in the past. It's never outright stated, but this could easily be the reason Ouromov and Xenia betray the Russian government by working with Trevelyan. This comes up a few times throughout the movie with characters talking about post-Soviet Russia and how things have changed since the Cold War, like Zukovsky grumbling irritably about free-market capitalism before Bond approaches him; and M referring to Bond as "a relic of the Cold War." It's also revealed to be Trevelyan's major motivation for his actions.
    Bond: Why?
    Alec Trevelyan: [laughs] Hilarious question, particularly from you. Did you ever ask why? Why we toppled all those dictators? Undermined all those regimes? Only to come home. 'Good job. Well done. But, sorry, old boy, everything you risked your life and limb for has changed!'
  • Why Won't You Die?: Trevelyan to Bond on the train; "Why can't you just be a good boy and die?" Bond gives an appropriate response.
    Bond: You first. [gestures to Xenia] You, second.
  • Woman Scorned: The narrator of the film's title song.
    "You'll never know how it feels to get so close and be denied."
    • Implied to be why Onatopp comes after Bond so ferociously in the jungle; she eschews any subtlety she might have employed previously seemingly out of anger over him besting her and denying her pleasure in the bathhouse.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Bond gets into a fight with Xenia in the steam room and is willing to slam her against a wall and throw her onto the steam rocks. He then knocks her out after she drives him to the statue park. Later, when she attacks him again, he kills her by taking out the helicopter supporting her, making her one of the very few women he has directly executed in the series. Then again, Xenia is one of the few women who has tried to directly murder him. Maybe Elektra King should've been taking notes before tempting fate by saying "You wouldn't kill me" to Bond.
  • Wound That Will Not Heal: Non-fantasy version. Valentin uses a cane to walk because of a limp on his right leg that Bond gave him by shooting him.
  • You Can Keep Her!: When Janus gives Bond the Sadistic Choice of saving Natalya or completing the mission, Bond coldly answers, "Kill her, she means nothing to me." He then rescues her anyway and later comments, "Basic rule, always call their bluff." Later, when she changes the Goldeneye access codes, Janus threatens to kill Bond if she doesn't cooperate. Her response: "Go ahead, shoot him. He means nothing to me".
  • "You!" Exclamation: Not said out loud, but the look on Bond's face definitely says this as Janus reveals that he is Alec Trevelyan back from the dead.
  • You Have Failed Me: Wouldn't be a Bond movie without this, in Trevelyan's response when Ourumov delivers Natalya to him:
    Alec: Either you've brought me the perfect gift, General Ouromov, or you've made me a very unhappy man.
    Ouromov: Mishkin got to them before I could.
    Alec: Bond is alive?
    Ouromov: He escaped. [takes a drink from his flask]
    Alec: Good for Bond. [beat] Bad for you.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Immediately after having the officer in charge of Severnaya bring him the GoldenEye key, Ouromov has Xenia kill not just him, but also the entire Severnaya staff.
  • You Killed My Father: Alec Trevelyan's motive is revenge against the British government for betraying his parents.
  • You're Insane!: Bond gives a Kirk Summation to Trevelyan on his plot to ruin the world, though 006 chews him out on his Failure Hero tendency to lose allies on missions, his Fatal Flaw for women, and clinging on to outdated ideals.
    Bond: A worldwide financial meltdown... and all so mad little Alec can settle a score with the world 50 years on.
    Trevelyan: Oh please James, spare me the Freud! I might as well ask if all those vodka martinis silenced the screams of all the men you've killed... or if you find solace in the arms of those willing women, for all the dead ones you failed to protect.
  • You Taste Delicious: Trevelyan licks the cheek of his hostage, Natalya, and says she "tastes like strawberries."


"For England, James?"
"No... For me."

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Xenia Onatopp

This is a Bond movie after all, so at least one of the girls has one. Xenia definitely likes to be Onatopp of things, would you say? It's even used in Moneypenny's message to Bond when he's in his car after meeting Xenia at the casino. (This works even better in the German version, where Bond butchers her name into "Ohne Top", "topless".) Now this is the same franchise that brought us Pussy Galore, after all.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / PunnyName

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