They say a hero is only as good as his Villain. If that's the case, James Bond has certainly created a name for himself, battling the many, many memorable villains he's faced off against over the years.
So many strong tropes associated with James Bond earned the franchise such an iconic place in mainstream pop culture. There’s the now-famous James Bond theme song, the several incarnations of the character played by multiple actors, and the numerous best-selling songs performed by some of the greatest artists of all time, including Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger,” Tina Turner’s “GoldenEye,” and Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die.” And yet, perhaps the biggest contribution the James Bond franchise has ever made to pop culture is 007’s famous villains, all of whom are nearly as popular as the international super spy himself.
From psychopathic minions and vindictive terrorists to rogue government agents and murderous drug dealers, here are the greatest villains in the James Bond franchise, ranked from best to worst.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Were there any doubts who'd be at the top of the list? It may be cliché to name Blofeld as the absolute best Bond villain, but with how iconic and closely associated the character has become to 007, it's impossible not to see him as anything but the series' ultimate villain.
Whether he's played by Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Christoph Waltz, or Charles Gray (yes, we even like Diamonds Are Forever‘s campier version of the character) or being directly parodied by Mike Myers' Dr. Evil, Blofeld is easily one of the most recognizable villains in all of pop culture. With a rivalry as famous as the battle between Joker and Batman or Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, he remains one of Bond's consistently most dangerous enemies and also one of his most popular.
Alec Trevelyan
GoldenEye was a deeply important movie in Bond's history. After audiences’ favor with the super spy soured a bit during the Timothy Dalton era, the film's producers tried to make a more modern movie that still paid homage to the nature of the original 007 movies. It also featured Bond's best adversary during Pierce Brosnan's time as 007 in the form of Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean). A former 00 agent and one of Bond's best friends, Trevelyan faked his death and formed the Janus crime syndicate, an international organization of arms dealers. As part of his plot, Trevelyan attempts to hijack a large weaponized Soviet satellite and destroy London to avenge his Cossack parents (it makes more sense when he says it aloud).
By introducing a personal friend of Bond as an enemy, Trevelyan was unlike most villains in Bond canon, making it a personal mission while also deeply messing with Bond's psyche. Admittedly, his personal backstory involving the Cossacks, the British army, and the USSR was a bit much — they could've just gone with the fact that he's angry that MI6 left him to die on a failed mission or something, much like Skyfall’s Raoul Silva. Regardless, Trevelyan was a welcome addition to Bond's rogues' gallery of villains, earning him a distinguished place as one of the most formidable frenemies Bond ever went up against.
Francisco Scaramanga
Unfortunately, one of Bond's best villains had to be featured in one of the absolute worst 007 movies. Still, Francisco Scaramanga, the titular “man with the golden gun,” was a welcome addition to Bond's cinematic universe, brilliantly played by the always-entertaining Christopher Lee. In many ways, Scaramanga was the best villain Roger Moore's Bond ever faced during Moore's run as the character, serving as the one redeeming quality in an otherwise pointless, campy, boring mess of a movie.
Cold, suave, and efficient, Scaramanga is supposedly the most dangerous man in the world and perhaps the most infamous hitman that money can buy. The Bond equivalent to Kraven the Hunter from the Spider-Man comics, when Scaramanga sets his eyes on a target, he needs only one bullet from his signature golden gun to finish the job. We will never know how the filmmakers screwed up such a perfect villain from that description alone.
Red Grant
Perhaps the most underrated Bond villain, Red Grant is easily the best henchman in all of Bond, beating out fan favorites like Oddjob and Jaws. From Russia With Love cemented the standard format for 007's villains — with the main antagonist usually being the “brains” and the secondary antagonist being “the brawn,” which would be seen repeatedly in subsequent James Bond films. Few henchmen, however, can compete with the original secondary antagonist, Red Grant, played by the equally underrated, always enjoyable Robert Shaw.
Grant was Bond's character's complete antithesis, serving as SPECTRE's evil version of 007. Aloof, professional, and sadistic, Shaw's white-haired assassin posed the first real physical threat to Connery's Bond, resulting in one of the best fight scenes of Connery's tenure and the first that left the audience wondering, “How in God's name is Bond going to beat this guy?”
Jaws
A fan-favorite Bond villain, Jaws might also be one of the most recognizable antagonists in pop culture, rivaling fellow Bond favorites like Oddjob and Blofeld in terms of sheer popularity. One of the few Bond villains to be featured in more than one film, Jaws (the late, great Richard Kiel) is a hulking giant of an assassin who uses his razor-sharp metallic teeth and powerful jaws both as a weapon and a tool to bite through pretty much anything.
A henchman that refuses to die, even when seemingly being killed time and time again by Bond, Jaws is a man on a mission whose job brings him face-to-face with 007 in repeated fight scenes. Though Jaws first appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me, stealing the spotlight from the otherwise weak antagonist Karl Stromberg, his return in Moonraker severely watered down the character, turning him into a bumbling henchman providing comic relief, complete with an out-of-character change of heart that seems him aiding Bond and defeating the main baddy, Hugo Drax.
Auric Goldfinger
Just as iconic as his theme song, Goldfinger directly rivals Blofeld as the most well-known Bond villain. The first foe 007 faced that wasn't directly related to the villainous organization, SPECTRE, Goldfinger offered a fantastic one-off adventure that incidentally resulted in the most beloved movie in the franchise, mainly due to its eponymous villain and his equally awesome henchman, Oddjob.
We don't know what it is about Goldfinger that makes him so iconic — it could be his off-kilter obsession with gold, his over-the-top plan to nuke Fort Knox and increase the value of his own gold supply, his now famous quip (Bond: “You expect me to talk?” Goldfinger: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!) — but whatever it is, this dastardly little maniac has proved to be one of the most recognizable villains in all of Bond's numerous movies.
Oddjob
The quintessential Bond henchman, Oddjob may be just as well-known as Goldfinger's titular main antagonist, if not more so. The series' previous henchman, Red Grant, may have introduced the idea of a villainous goon that provides a physical threat to Bond in From Russia With Love, but it's Goldfinger's now-iconic second-in-command, Oddjob, that established so many tropes that would become associated with secondary Bond antagonists.
Hardol Sakata's silent, well-dressed, hulking henchman has a distinct appearance in Goldfinger, playing an unstoppable, bowler-hat-throwing henchman who will go to extreme lengths to follow his employer's orders and eliminate Connery's Bond once and for all. The entire franchise owes the character a significant debt of gratitude for establishing the standard Bond archetypal villains, and he manages to do it all without even uttering a word.
Raoul Silva
Easily the best villain Daniel Craig's Bond ever came up against, Javier Bardem's Raoul Silva is a former British MI6 agent turned cyberterrorist seeking revenge against his former employer, M (Judi Dench). His simple, elegant plan (kill M) symbolizes the Daniel Craig Bond era, showcasing everything a modern villain should be.
Bardem managed to infuse so much personality into Silva yet still left plenty of room for mystery behind the character's past. What's more, Bardem's character wasn't even taken or modeled after any villain from the Fleming novels — he's a completely original character, proving that, in this day and age, filmmakers might not have to rely too closely on the books.
Rosa Klebb
From Russia With Love, the second Bond film in the franchise was surprisingly progressive for its 1963 release. Rosa Klebb, the first female main antagonist Bond had ever faced, seemed a breath of fresh air for a genre dominated by male actors. A former Russian spy turned double agent for SPECTRE, Colonel Klebb is one of the most intelligent, manipulative villains the franchise has ever seen.
She very nearly succeeds in her plan to terminate Bond, memorably trying to stab him to death with a poisoned knife coming out of her shoe, only failing because the protégé she tried to manipulate fell for Bond instead. Klebb seemed to signify the start of something fresh and unseen before in an otherwise not very inclusive 1960s spy thriller genre – an ingenious female villain smarter than many of the men around her. It's just a shame that so few female villains have played vital roles in subsequent Bond films.
Le Chiffre
Given the utter disarray the Bond franchise had fallen into by the early 2000s, it’s understandable that the producers rebooted the series from the ground up. With that in mind, a lot was riding on Casino Royale, with nearly insurmountable pressure on Daniel Craig’s new iteration of the character and his first major antagonist, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).
Arguably the most intelligent of Bond’s many adversaries over the years, Le Chiffre proves himself capable of outwitting Bond around every corner, engaging with the young 007 in a battle of the minds rather than an outright battle of fists. It was a high bar Mikkelsen set with his portrayal of the terrorist accountant, only surpassed by Javier Bardem’s disillusioned MI6 agent, Raoul Silva, years later.
Xenia Onatopp
As mentioned above, the Bond franchise, unfortunately, has far too few female villains. By 1995's GoldenEye, it had been an incredibly long time since 007 had crossed paths with a formidable female antagonist, the last example being On Her Majesty's Secret Service‘s Irma Bunt in 1969.
Xenia Onatopp represents the best of both Bond worlds. Though in possession of a silly name and gimmick (she's a henchperson who derives literal sadistic pleasure from inflicting pain on others) that would be commonly found in the Connery or Moore Bond movies, she also represented the much more serious type of villain that Brosnan and later Daniel Craig would routinely combat. Not just one of the best henchpeople in all of Bond, she also remains one of the best villains in the entire franchise – one of the few secondary villains who nearly stole the spotlight from the main antagonist.
Renard
It's hard to know exactly what to classify The World Is Not Enough's Renard as. He starts off the film firmly in the role of the main antagonist, and even when Elektra King – Bond's love interest turned traitor – is elevated to center stage, Renard refuses to fade into the role of secondary antagonist. Perhaps he’s just that great a villain.
In the context of the film, Renard is a rogue KGB agent-turned-terrorist who, years ago, was nearly killed in an assassination attempt that left a bullet lodged in his head, rendering him unable to feel any physical sensations whatsoever, including pain. The only drawback is that he'll be killed when the bullet finally reaches his brain. It's an awesome concept, and Robert Carlyle portrays the villain extremely well. He's a dangerous physical and mental threat to Brosnan's Bond and is one of the few remarkable features in an otherwise subpar Bond flick.
Elektra King
Renard shares the spotlight in The World Is Not Enough with Sophie Marceau's Elektra King, a wealthy oil heiress who was kidnapped and held for ransom by Renard, though her father (on the advice of M) refused to pay for her safe return. Enraged, King partners with Renard in a plot to trigger a nuclear meltdown in Istanbul, gaining a monopoly on petroleum oil in the process.
As discussed previously, female villains are a rarity in James Bond movies – especially one who begins initially as a romantic interest for 007 and then turns out to be in league with the villain the whole time. It's a brilliant plot twist in an underwhelming movie, making King a distinct antagonist able to get inside Bond's head, earning her a distinguished place among Bond’s lengthy list of enemies.
May Day
Yet another secondary antagonist that stole the show from her film’s main villain, May Day appears alongside Christopher Walken’s slimy businessman/Nazi genetic creation/rogue KGB agent, Max Zorin, in 1985’s A View to a Kill. Expertly played by Grace Jones, May Day makes for a fascinating villain in the context of James Bond and one of the earliest physically imposing female foes he faced in his cinematic adventures.
Possessing peak physical strength and unrivaled athleticism, she was the first prominent female villain capable of giving 007 a run for his money in a fight (and in more intimate settings as well). As remarkable a villain as she was, it’s hard to classify her as a definitive antagonist, seeing as how she helps Bond after Zorin leaves her to die. Regardless, she was easily the most fascinating female villain since Rosa Klebb 22 years prior.
Franz Sanchez
In a world of kitschy megalomaniacs with plans for conquering the world or holding it hostage, License to Kill’s Franz Sanchez is a welcome change of pace. He's not someone who plans on triggering a nuclear meltdown or blowing up a country or anything like that – he's just a cold-blooded, sadistic drug lord who wants to continue running his operation. That is until he gets in Bond's way, of course.
After escaping from DEA confinement and targeting Bond's best friend, Sanchez escapes to South America, a vengeful Bond in hot pursuit. Few villains have managed to make things personal with Bond or draw out the kind of anger and emotion he displays throughout License to Kill quite like Robert Davi's Sanchez. He's a much more realistic villain than many others on this list, perhaps one of the main reasons he's also one of the most terrifying. Davi's sudden burst of emotion, going from calm and collected to homicidal lunacy, spelled a very grounded take on the traditional Bond villain.
Dr Julius No
Dr. No might not be the first Bond villain written by Ian Fleming (that title goes to Le Chiffre), but as the first cinematic villain ever adapted from the original novels, Joseph Wiseman's portrayal of the titular Dr. No set the standard for what audiences would come to expect from traditional Bond antagonists.
He demonstrates the distinct physical appearance and “gimmick” of a Bond villain in every way imaginable (in this case, he's a mad scientist with robotic hands), has a unique hideout (a hidden fortress in the Caribbean), and has an elaborate plan to sew chaos in the world (disrupt an American rocket launch) – all traits that future Bond villains would share. For that alone, he deserves all of our respect and appreciation.
Elliot Carver
Tomorrow Never Die‘s Elliot Carver is an interesting character on this lily because his plan is so ridiculous and over the top, even by Bond movie standards. As the head of a large media conglomerate, Carver wants to stage a war between China and England, hoping to be the first to provide news coverage of the entire thing. It's a plan that literally doesn't make any sense and is so mind-numbingly dumb that it's honestly baffling that the producers decided to make a movie out of it.
