James Bond villains ranked from worst to best (original) (raw)

The James Bond series has showcased many evil geniuses over the course of its history. But are all James Bond villains created equal? Some have entered the Big Screen Baddies’ Hall Of Fame (hello Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Le Chiffre and Auric Goldfinger), while others struggle to be recalled by even the most hardcore fan (we’re looking at you, Dominic Greene).

So here’s our ranking of the best-ever James Bond bad guys. Just to note, we’re not talking henchmen here, so no Jaws, Renard, Mr Hinx or Oddjob, and yes, we’re counting each Blofeld individually…

25: Elliot Carver | Tomorrow Never Dies

Jonathan Pryce played a nefarious media mogul inspired by Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies. (Alamy)

The idea of a nefarious media baron was a solid basis for a Bond villain, except Eliot Carver’s plan wasn’t for world domination, or to bring the UN to its knees, but to provoke a war between the UK and China so as to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights. Yes, really.

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It doesn’t help that Jonathan Pryce — so good in Slow Horses — lacks the requisite heft to compete with the best Bond baddies. Rumour has it the role was offered to Anthony Hopkins first, who certainly would have been a better fit.

24: Dominic Greene | Quantum of Solace

Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace. (Alamy)

Coming straight after Mads Mikkelsen’s turn as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale did Mathieu Amalric no favours in Daniel Craig’s sophomore effort. Amalric brings some high-level slime to the role, but, at a diminutive 5’ 6”, Greene comes across as a glorified henchman more than the frontline baddie he’s supposed to be.

23: Blofeld | Diamonds are Forever

Charles Gray as Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. (Alamy)

After Telly Savalas’ steely-eyed essaying of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, we get Charles Gray as SPECTRE’s cat-bothering boss man. Gray’s slightly camp reading of the role and the script’s decision to – at one point – put him in drag only goes to defang this most iconic of Bond villains.

22: Brad Whitaker | The Living Daylights

Joe Don Baker (centre) as Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights. (Alamy)

The best Bond foes may be bad, but they also have pin-sharp intellects. The trouble with The Living Daylight’s Brad Whittaker is that he’s essentially an idiot, a black market arms dealer with an almost fetishistic fascination with all things military. That Joe Don Baker (who’d later be cast as CIA operative Jack Wade in the Brosnan movies) plays him as Sheriff J.W. Pepper in a US General’s uniform doesn’t help.

21: Aristotle Kristatos | For Your Eyes Only

Julian Glover - who was once considered to play James Bond himself - as Kristasos in For Your Eyes Only. (Alamy)

Roger Moore’s follow-up to Moonraker brought the franchise back down to earth, in more ways than one. Eschewing the larger-than-life adversaries of his previous films, For Your Eyes Only pits Bond against… a smuggler.

Actor Julian Glover does his best here, but after the heavyweight threats of Karl Stromberg and Hugo Drax, the character of Aristotle Kristatos can’t help but feel a bit Bergerac.

20: Emilio Largo | Thunderball

Adolfo Celi was Largo in 1965's Thunderball. (Alamy)

The James Bond series was clearly setting the scene for the proper introduction of Blofeld, by centering Thunderball around the SPECTRE boss’ ‘number two’, the eyepatch-rocking Emilio Largo. More of a common thug that we’re used to with Bond villains, it was decided in the film to dub actor Adolfo Celi with the voice of Robert Rietti, a practice that was weirdly common in 1960s movies, but proves fatally distracting today.

19: Lyutsifer Safin | No Time To Die

Rami Malek as Safin in No Time To Die. (MGM/Universal Pictures/EON)

Giving yet another James Bond baddie a facial disfigurement for No Time To Die provoked a real ‘read the room’ reaction in 2021. On paper, Rami Malek's Lyutsifer Safin had impeccable tough guy credentials – he was smart and ruthless, and ultimately got the better of Bond in the end — but the idea of linking disability with evil was something the series should have grown out of by then.

18: Gustav Graves | Die Another Day

Toby Stephens chewed the scenery in 2002's Die Another Day. (MGM/Everett Collection)

Toby Stephens was cast as Die Another Day’s chief villain primarily for his Bond-like qualities. The character starts the movie as the North Korean Colonel Moon (played by Will Yun Lee), who undergoes ‘gene therapy’ to reappear as the suave, British-accented Gustav Graves, having based his new persona on, yes, Agent 007.

Stephens would go on to play James Bond in a series of BBC radio adaptations, but overdoes the snarl as Graves, in a movie that’s generally lacking in subtlety.

17: Karl Stromberg | The Spy Who Loved Me

Curd Jürgens (left) as Stromberg in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, alongside Barbara Bach and Roger Moore. (Alamy)

The Spy Who Loved Me is, of course, one of the greats of the canon, but its main villain — Curd Jürgen's Karl Stromberg, a webbed-fingered megalomaniac who’s planning to trigger World War III so as to create a new civilisation underwater — is overshadowed by his own right-hand man. Jaws, played by the 7’ 2” Richard Kiel, is the standout here, so much so that the Bond producers brought the character back for 1979’s Moonraker.

16: Elektra King | The World Is Not Enough

Sophie Marceau's Elektra King was a change of pace for Pierce Brosnan's Bond in The World Is Not Enough. (Keith Hamshere/Getty Images)

After 19 movies, it was clearly time that the series had a woman as Bond’s main adversary. Not that we know that about Elektra King for much of The World Is Not Enough’s running time. For much of the movie, it’s Robert Carlyle’s pain-impervious Renard who’s the primary antagonist, with Sophie Marceau’s oil heiress unmasked as the film’s Big Bad halfway through.

15: Blofeld | Spectre

Christoph Waltz as Blofeld in Spectre (MGM/Columbia)

Ernst Stavro Blofeld had been off screen for 34 years (if you ignore his pre-titles cameo in For Your Eyes Only, and his unofficial appearance in Never Say Never Again), when Christoph Waltz breathed fresh life into the SPECTRE leader for Daniel Craig’s fourth flick.

Sadly, the reinvention of the character, making him James Bond’s adoptive brother, reduced the drama in the movie to a simple family dispute.

14: Hugo Drax | Moonraker

Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax on the set of Moonraker. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

An example of when the villain outshines the movie around him. Moonraker may be the inferior companion piece to The Spy Who Loved Me, but it boasts a more vivid bad guy in industrialist Hugo Drax.

Immaculately attired, with a trimmed beard and a jet-black brylcreemed thatch, he’s about as archetypal a Bond antagonist as it’s possible to get, played with precision by French actor Michael Lonsdale.

13: Franz Sanchez | Licence to Kill

Robert Davi's Franz Sanchez was a tough opponent for Bond. (Alamy)

Played by Robert Davi, Licence To Kill’s main evildoer was a departure for the Bond series. A sadistic drug lord, he was more Pablo Escobar than Erst Stavro Blofeld, someone who was more likely to cut an enemy’s heart out than strap him to a laser cutting table.

12: Max Zorin | A View to a Kill

Christopher Walken's Zorin and Grace Jones' May Day made a memorable duo in A View To A Kill. (Alamy)

With his shock of blond hair, A View to a Kill’s Max Zorin was Bond villain as rock star, and it’s no surprise the Bond producers had originally sought out David Bowie for the role. Christopher Walken, however, would prove a perfect match, so much so that in a film weighted down by an increasingly ageing cast, it’s given some much-needed va-va-voom by the then-38-year-old actor.

11: Dr. Kananga | Live and Let Die

Yaphet Kotto brought gravitas to Kananga in Live and Let Die. (Alamy)

Future Alien star Yaphet Kotto essentially gets to play two parts in Roger Moore’s Blaxploitation-styled debut, as the corrupt Prime Minister of the fictitious Caribbean island of San Monique and as that character’s alter ego of American drug lord Mr Big. Kotto goes from oozing ruthless charm as one to thuggish malevolence as the other, creating one of the series’ most indelible baddies.

10: Kamal Khan | Octopussy

Louis Jourdan brought charm to Kamal Khan in 1983's Octopussy. (Alamy)

Often the best Bond villains are played by actors that, in another universe, could have been cast as 007 themselves. It’s easy to see Octopussy’s exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan as a Bond-type figure, played as he is by the effortlessly smooth Louis Jourdan.

He shares baddie duties in the movie with General Orlov (played by Steven Berkoff, who was Hollywood’s go-to villain in the 80s), but it’s the urbane and self-assured Khan who leaves the lasting impression.

9: Alec Trevelyan | GoldenEye

Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp with Sean Bean's double-crossing Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye. (Alamy)

Sean Bean was not just another actor who could have played Bond, he was actively considered for the part after Timothy Dalton handed in his Walther PPK. GoldenEye marked the first time Bond was pitted against a fellow Double-O agent, one with an almost identical skillset.

The character of 006 was originally conceived as an older mentor figure to Bond, until it was decided to write him as closer to our hero’s age.

8: Raoul Silva | Skyfall

Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem in Skyfall (MGM/EON/Sony Pictures)

Raoul Silva wasn’t, like Alec Trevelyan, a one-time Double-O, but he was a former MI6 agent, who had resorted to cyberterrorism after being hung out to dry by his former boss, M. Javier Bardem brings not only one of the Bond series’ most idiosyncratic haircuts to the role, but a series first in terms of some same-sex flirting with Bond.

7: Auric Goldfinger | Goldfinger

Gert Fröbe's Goldfinger crossed paths with Sean Connery's James Bond's James Bond in 1964's Goldfinger. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

One of the Bond series’ poster villains, the character of Auric Goldfinger was brought to life by two actors, with Michael Collins dubbing the heavily German-accented Gert Fröbe. A bullion dealer obsessed with all things gold, and with honey-coloured hair to match, the character would provide the inspiration for Austin Power’s similarly gold-hungry superfoe, Goldmember.

6: Blofeld | On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Telly Savalas bought charm and wit to Blofeld in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (Alamy)

Telly Savalas would prove an altogether sexier Ernst Stavro Blofeld for George Lazenby’s sole outing as 007. Jettisoning the facial scar that had been established in You Only Live Twice, this Blofeld was a younger and fitter version of the character (he even chases Bond on skis, something it’s hard to imagine Donald Pleasance doing), whose only bodily quirk are in the ear lobes he’s snipped off.

5: Red Grant | From Russia With Love

Before he was Quint in Jaws, Robert Shaw lit up the screen as the deadly Red Grant in 1963's From Russia With Love. (Alamy)

Unlike Dr No, Bond’s second outing is without a central villain, with baddie duties shared between SPECTRE operative Rosa Klebb and taut-tummied assassin Donald ‘Red’ Grant, played by Brit actor Robert Shaw. It’s Shaw’s scenes with Connery on the Orient Express that are among the movie’s best, with Grant proving as much a match for Bond in charm as in toughness.

4: Dr No | Dr No

Jospeh Wiseman's Dr No set the template for all future Bond Villains. (Alamy)

Though the idea of casting a caucasian actor as a Chinese character is a definite (Dr) no-no in 2024, James Bond’s first official Big Bad is the model for most, if not all, of the ubervillains that followed. An exquisitely tailored member of SPECTRE, with prosthetic metal hands, he was brought to life by Canadian actor Joseph Wiseman, who plays the character with an air of supercilious disdain. “The successful criminal brain is always superior,” he tells Bond. “It has to be.”

3: Scaramanga | The Man With The Golden Gun

Christopher Lee and Herve Villechaise were another formidable double act in The Man With The Golden Gun. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Like Hugo Drax and Moonraker, The Man With The Golden Gun is a third-rate Bond film centred around a first-rate bad guy. In fact, Christopher Lee is such a charisma-bomb in the movie that he constantly threatens to outshine Roger Moore.

Certainly, at 6′ 5″ he towers over his co-star and gives him a run for his money in the seduction stakes. Some Bond villains require a quirk to make them memorable, but Lee didn’t need the character’s extraneous nipple or even the solid-gold gun to mark him out.

2: Le Chiffre | Casino Royale

Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale (Sony Pictures)

A new kind of Bond film called for a new kind of Bond villain, certainly of a more vicious flavour than the ones Pierce Brosnan had been used to. It’s hard to picture any bad guy before Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre whacking Bond’s meat and two veg with a knotted rope or threatening to slice a woman’s arm off with a machete.

But apart from his more brutal qualities, Le Chiffre was also a refreshingly flawed villain, what with his ever-present inhaler. He’s also the one Bond foe to die (he’s shot by Quantum operative Mr. White) before the movie’s final act.

1: Blofeld | You Only Live Twice

Donald Pleasence as the genre-defining Blofeld in You Only Live Twice. (Alamy)

The Bond series had been teasing the cat-stroking boss of SPECTRE for three films before we finally got to see him in all his scarred, psychotic glory. Donald Pleasance makes for a supremely creepy Ernst Stavro Blofeld, delivering each line with a measured malevolence. It could have ended up so very differently, however.

Producer Harry Saltzman had originally cast Czech actor Jan Werich in the role, only he was sacked after just a few days filming, with co-producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert noting that the bearded actor resembled a "poor, benevolent Father Christmas" more than a criminal mastermind. With his replacement, meanwhile, the Bond series lucked out, winning its most unforgettable and enduring (Austin Powers’ Dr Evil owes him everything) supervillain.

The James Bond films are streaming on Prime Video from 5 October, 2024.