Casino Royale is a 2006 spy film, the twenty-first in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the third screen adaptation of Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel of the same name. Directed by Martin Campbell from a screenplay by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis, it stars Daniel Craig in his first appearance as Bond, alongside Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, and Jeffrey Wright. In the film, Bond is on assignment to bankrupt terrorism financier Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen) in a high-stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro.

Following Die Another Day (2002), Eon decided to reboot the franchise,[5][6] attempting to provide a realistic exploration of a less experienced and more vulnerable Bond.[7] Casting involved a widespread search for a new actor to succeed Pierce Brosnan as Bond; the choice of Craig, announced in October 2005, initially proved controversial. Principal photography took place in the Bahamas, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic, with interior sets built at Pinewood Studios and Barrandov Studios. Casino Royale features primarily practical stuntwork as opposed to the computer-generated placements seen in other Bond films.

MI6 operative James Bond earns his “licence to kill” and promotion to 00 agent status by assassinating the traitorous Dryden and his contact in Prague. In Uganda, Mr. White introduces Steven Obanno, a high-ranking member of the Lord’s Resistance Army, to Le Chiffre, an Albanian private banker to terrorists. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with $100 million to invest. Using knowledge of his own upcoming terrorist attack on aerospace manufacturer Skyfleet, Le Chiffre shorts the company’s stock.

In Madagascar, Bond blows up an embassy while capturing and then killing a bomb-maker named Mollaka. MI6 chief M admonishes Bond for causing an international incident and ignoring her orders to take Mollaka alive. Information on Mollaka’s phone leads Bond to the Bahamas and a corrupt Greek official, Alex Dimitrios, who had hired Mollaka at Le Chiffre’s request to bomb Skyfleet’s prototype airliner. After winning Dimitrios’s vintage Aston Martin in a poker game and seducing his wife, Solange, Bond pursues Dimitrios to Miami. Bond fends off an attack by Dimitrios and kills him. At the airport, Bond chases down the new bomber Dimitrios has hired and thwarts the destruction of the Skyfleet airliner. With the Skyfleet stock secure, Le Chiffre loses Obanno’s money. Surmising that somebody talked about the terrorist plot, Le Chiffre tortures Solange to death.

To recoup his client’s money, Le Chiffre organizes a Texas hold ’em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond—the agency’s best poker player—in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for information on his clients. Bond is paired with Vesper Lynd, a British Treasury agent overseeing the $10 million buy-in. They meet their contact, René Mathis, in Montenegro. Obanno, furious that his money is missing, threatens Le Chiffre, but allows him to continue playing to win back the money. Obanno and his bodyguard attack Bond, who kills them both. Bond loses his $10 million stake after Le Chiffre is tipped off about his own tell, and Vesper refuses to authorize an additional $5 million for Bond to continue. Fellow player Felix Leiter, a CIA agent, stakes Bond to the money in exchange for letting his agency take Le Chiffre into custody. Le Chiffre’s lover, Valenka, poisons Bond’s martini, but Vesper rescues him. Bond returns to the game and wins the tournament. Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper to trap Bond and takes them to an abandoned ship. He tortures Bond to reveal the password to the bank account holding the winnings, but Bond resists. Mr. White bursts in and kills Le Chiffre, but spares Bond and Vesper.

Bond awakens in hospital and recovers with Vesper at his side. He has Mathis apprehended, believing that he had tipped off Le Chiffre about his tell. Bond falls in love with Vesper and resigns from MI6. The couple sails to Venice. When M reveals that his winnings were never transferred to the British treasury, Bond realizes that Vesper has betrayed him. He tails her to a hand-off of the money, where gunmen spot him and take her captive inside a Venetian palace undergoing restoration. Bond shoots the building’s flotation devices, causing it to gradually sink into the Grand Canal as he picks off the shooters. Vesper is imprisoned in the elevator, and Bond dives into the canal to rescue her. Vesper locks herself in to prevent Bond from saving her, and drowns. Bond attempts to resuscitate her, but fails, and Mr. White escapes with the money.

M informs Bond, who has returned to service, that the organization behind Le Chiffre[n 1] threatened to kill Vesper’s lover unless she became a double agent. When Bond denounces Vesper as a traitress, M reasons that she likely made a deal with White by trading the winnings for Bond’s life. Realizing Vesper left her phone to help him, Bond checks the contacts and locates Mr. White at an estate in Lake Como. He shoots White in the leg and introduces himself: “The name’s Bond, James Bond”.