10 Greatest James Bond Movies Villains: in Which Movie He Featured Best?

By Aarush Sharma On Jun 9, 2022

Agent 007 facing off against a single Big Bad, one with a nefarious plot to either control the world or control a specific mechanism within it, has become a trademark of the franchise, much like archenemies for superheroes have become a trademark of comic books.

Bond is, arguably, nothing without a tremendous threat to confront, which is why bombastic and frequently terrifying villains are such an important element of the series’ success.

Over the course of nearly 60 years, Bond has faced up against everyone from drug dealers attempting to establish a heroin monopoly to billionaires attempting to steal nuclear bombs to one man who simply loves money.

So, let’s see how the best of the best compare. Here are the 11 best James Bond villains, from Christopher Walken’s deranged tech billionaire to Lotte Lenya’s poisonous spy.

10. MAX ZORIN

Despite the fact that his part came in what many believe to be Roger Moore’s weakest film, Walken extracted every last drop of wicked delight from his scary role.

Walken waltzed into the Bond franchise as tech mogul Max Zorin, a type of quirky modern nobleman crossed with a weapons-grade sociopath who cares far more about his own legacy than any potential complaints.

His scheme to flood a large portion of California in order to control the global microchip market feels like a 1980s version of something a tech tycoon might try today, and Walken’s enthusiasm for it makes it quite plausible.

9. ELEKTRA KING

Due to a complex plot and an increasing dependence on gadgets and CGI graphics to sell the action, Pierce Brosnan’s third excursion as Bond is not hailed as one of the franchise’s greatest hours.

However, there are some standout moments in this uneven misfire, particularly Sophie Marceau’s performance as the unexpected villain Elektra King.

They are consigned to the role of the villain’s girlfriend, who is brutally murdered in the first act. Elektra was a unique character, and Marceau’s controlled craziness helped her character work in a film where it didn’t always work.

8. EMILIO LARGO

The adversary in many Bond films is depicted as a physically grotesque creature in contrast to Bond’s dashing appearance, providing visual contrast as well as opposing objectives. Despite the eye patch.

Adolfo Celi’s Largo is every bit the debonair playboy that Bond is, if not more so, with an extra layer of ruthless indifference.

He’s cosmopolitan, polished, and, until Bond begins to dissect his strategy, he’s even dashing, which fits in nicely with Thunderball’s plot’s globe-hopping character.

7. HUGO DRAX

In the 1970s, Bond faced two villains whose plot was effectively “murder everyone so I can repopulate the planet through my unique billionaire kingdom,” and with all due credit to Curt Jurgens’ performance in The Spy Who Loved Me, Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax has the edge between the two flicks.

Drax aims to develop a race of genetic superhumans on board his specially created space station, which he will also use to rain down nerve gas on Earth, killing the lesser beings below, in one of the most outrageous Bond plots ever conceived.

It’s a completely insane scheme, but something about Lonsdale’s icy portrayal of Drax makes it seem credible.

6. ALEC TREVELYAN/JANUS

Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as James Bond wasn’t necessarily positioned as an outright relaunch of the series, but there was a sense that the franchise needed a new type of vitality after the extended gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye.

That manifests itself in a variety of ways throughout the film, but one of the most notable is Sean Bean’s portrayal of Alec Trevelyan, a supposed dead MI6 operative who returns to seek vengeance by proving himself on a world scale.

5. ROSA KLEBB

Given how well-known Rosa Klebb is in Bond mythology, it’s strange that she gets so little screen time in From Russia with Love, especially since she has Robert Shaw in her corner as enforcer Red Grant (henchmen, as we’ve covered).

As the vicious SPECTRE spy racing against Bond to get her hands on a top-secret decoder machine, Lotte Lenya owns every scene she’s in.

Klebb is a ferocious adversary who deserves more (pun not intended) love than she usually gets in Bond villain discussions.

4. FRANCISCO SCARAMANGA

Christopher Lee, like Christopher Walken, seems like the type of actor who was always destined to end up as a Bond villain at some point, so it’s fitting that he was given the title role.

Lee plays Bond’s dark side in The Man with the Golden Gun, just as lethal but for very different reasons, and his verbal sparring with Roger Moore raises the film above its somewhat complex premise.

He’s as engrossed in his work as he was with Dracula, and it’s a performance that’s worth watching again and again.

3. LE CHIFFRE

With Casino Royale, the Daniel Craig era of Bond announced that it would not be repeating the gadget-laden, laugh-heavy Brosnan period at all, and fans couldn’t get enough.

From the harsh stunt work to Craig’s more emotional Bond, to Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre, the evil Poker player with one eye on a terrorist organization’s ill-gotten millions.

The Bond franchise is replete with high-stakes card games between 007 and a crafty adversary, but none have ever cracked with the same amount of tension and downright hate between hero and baddie as when Bond and Le Chiffre face off.

2. ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD

Blofeld, the only Bond villain on our list who appears in numerous films, is the ultimate Bond villain in part because, like Bond himself, he never truly disappears.

Before Donald Pleasence gave him a face for the first time in You Only Live Twice, he was present in the backdrop of the first four Bond films as the mysterious head of SPECTRE, Number One.

Whether you prefer Pleasence’s soft-spoken intensity, Savalas’ energetic villainy, Gray’s suave delivery, or Waltz’s patient fury, Blofeld has lasted as a villain not just because of his position as the leader of a key criminal organization, but because

1. AURIC GOLDFINGER

Gert Frobe’s villain in the third Bond film was immortalized with only eight words as the type of foe we always want to see 007 faces off against.

Goldfinger was unconcerned with Bond’s unique fame or the ramifications of his demise on the worldwide espionage community. He only cared about winning, and that will to succeed triggered something in Sean Connery’s Bond that reinforced his own competitive instinct.

Of course, we know that the villain will never genuinely defeat Bond, so we want to see a villain who will come out swinging no matter how hard Bond pushes him or how much his plans must be revised.