FILM · 2006 · UK
Casino Royale
- Directed by
- Martin Campbell
- Runtime
- 144 min
- Studio
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, EON Productions
281 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his…
Summary: TMDB
12 Easter Eggs and References in Casino Royale
- #011
This is the first film to show James Bond as a rookie at MI6. In all the previous films, he had long been a spy.
- #042
This was the first James Bond film approved by Chinese censors. All the other films were available in China only as illegal bootlegs.
- #062
The black-and-white opening of this film was the idea of director of photography Phil Meheux, who conceived it both to surprise viewers and as a nod to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). The opening sequence required six thousand feet of Eastman Double-X 5222 black-and-white negative film, an hour and six minutes' worth at twenty-four frames per second. At the time of its release, this was the only film in the official series to have a significant sequence shot in black and white, although some of the shots of James Bond in the gun barrel sequences of the early films were in black and white. Climax! (1954) season one, episode three, "Casino Royale", was also entirely in black and white.
- #090
Contains a major spoiler — show
Bond films generally avoid referencing specific dates, but when Bond visits Vesper Lynd's tomb in Italy in the later Bond film No Time to Die (2021), her birth and death years of 1983 and 2006 are shown. Casino Royale (2006), the film in which Vesper dies, was released in 2006. It is not until No Time to Die (2021) that her character is revealed to have been 22 or 23 at the time of her death. Left unexplained is how someone that young obtained a senior-level position at MI6, tasked with preventing $100 million from falling into the hands of a terrorist.
- #109
This is the first official James Bond film to start without the famous gun barrel introduction, which is shown just before the opening titles. It is also a distinctly different style from any previous film: it is rendered in black-and-white, the blood falls in fast rivulets, the rifling of the barrel is markedly changed, Bond is dressed more casually (not in a tuxedo nor suit and tie), and for the first time in the franchise the viewer sees the person Bond shoots. Additionally, this is the first gun barrel sequence without some variation of the "James Bond theme", as it is accompanied by the opening bars of the theme song, "You Know My Name", sung by Chris Cornell. A more traditional gun barrel was included in Quantum of Solace (2008), but it is not shown until right before the closing credits.
- #125
Contains a major spoiler — show
As this film is a reboot of the 007 character, showing James Bond making his first two kills to qualify for "Double-0" status, it is implied that he has never (officially) killed before. Including those first two kills (but not Vesper, who kills herself despite Bond's attempts to rescue her, or Solange, for whose death he is indirectly responsible), Bond actively causes at least eleven definite deaths. Since the Daniel Craig Bond films restarted the timeline, negating all death tolls from former Bonds in previous films, this iteration of the character has only eleven kills in total so far.
- #136
The four-year gap between the release of Die Another Day (2002) and Casino Royale is the third longest gap between James Bond films since the series began in 1962. The longest gap was between Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995). The gap between Quantum of Solace (2008) and Skyfall (2012) is tied for third place, while the gap between Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021) ranks second at five years.
- #176
Contains a major spoiler — show
James Bond finds Vesper Lynd in the shower, where she says, "There's all this blood on my hands. It's not coming off." This foreshadows Vesper's death at the end of the film. It is also a reference to Macbeth, since both Lady Macbeth and Vesper commit suicide out of guilt over their actions.
- #184
Title designer Daniel Kleinman was inspired by the cover of the novel's 1953 first edition, which featured Ian Fleming's design of a playing card bordered by eight red hearts dripping with blood.
- #188
The license plate number of James Bond's silver birch Aston Martin DB5 is 56526. It is the same model used in Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965).
- #197
The license plate number of James Bond's silver birch 1964 Aston Martin DB5 is 56526. The car from Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) had the steering wheel on the right side, while in this movie it is on the left side.
- #240
In the black-and-white pre-title sequence, the lithographs on the wall in the bathroom fight scene are sometimes known as "Spy Prints." The lithographs from the 19th-century English magazine Vanity Fair were caricatures of famous people of the day, much like People's person of the month. One of the most prolific painters of these used the moniker "SPY," hence they are often called Spy Prints.
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