Metacritic reviews

Of all the Bonds, Goldfinger is the best, and can stand as a surrogate for the others. If it is not a great film, it is a great entertainment, and contains all the elements of the Bond formula that would work again and again.

Not just my favourite Bond movie, but the standard by which all other Bond movies must be judged. It has Sean Connery, of course, and the best theme song, incorporating Shirley Bassey and lashings of John Barry brass...And it has the best villain.

Larger than life, faintly ridiculous, completely cool, Goldfinger is the quintessential James Bond movie.

It's phenomenal! A rare case in film history that a series projecting the same character, with the same star, improves as it goes along. The James Bond movies do. The first, "Dr. No," was good; the second, "From Russia With Love," was better; the best and the wildest is Goldfinger, a fun galore thriller that is one of the brightest lights of the holiday offerings on screens of De Mille and Coronet Theatres.

Goldfinger contains more crowd-pleasing moments than any other Bond film, including Oddjob's flying bowler, a laser beam that almost emasculates Bond, the lavishly accessorized Aston Martin DB5, and the bizarre murder of Goldfinger's secretary (Shirley Eaton): she's gilded to death. It also features Shirley Bassey's terrific rendition of the Leslie Bricusse-Anthony Newley title song.

There's not the least sign of staleness in this third sample of the Bond 007 formula. Some liberties have been taken with Ian Fleming's original novel but without diluting its flavor.

This 1964 entry is the most enjoyable of the James Bond thrillers starring Sean Connery—perhaps because it's the most comic and cartoony in look as well as conception. Still, it's every bit as imperialist and misogynistic as the other screen adventures based on Ian Fleming's books.

Goldfinger is studded with moments that have since become deeply embedded in the Bond mythos. John Barry's opening song (sung by Shirley Bassey) is among the series' best. Snippets of dialogue have attained an almost-legendary status, such as the exchange when Goldfinger is about to emasculate 007 with a laser. "Do you expect me to talk?" asks Bond. The response is succinct: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

It holds the attention of the audience from brazen start to fantastic finish – well, not quite to the silly end, perhaps, but then we can’t have everything.

What they give us in Goldfinger is an excess of science-fiction fun, a mess of mechanical melodrama, and a minimum of bedroom farce...It is good fun, all right, fast and furious, racing hither and yon about the world as Double-Oh Seven pursues the intrigues of a mysterious financier named Goldfinger.