Top 10 James Bond Villains

James Bond villains can become relatively infamous in pop culture. It was pretty jarring to learn in my James Bond journey though that most of them are not that interesting. Here are the best ones.

 

10. Joseph Wiseman [Dr. No]

Joseph Wiseman was effective with his relatively small role. Like many Bond villains, they keep him off screen for much of the film until the climax to build his onscreen power. He essentially needed to do one thing in this film and that was to be unnerving. He successfully accomplished that.

 

9. Sean Bean [Goldeneye]

Sean Bean does a find job as he always does, but this is one of the most bizarre politically constructed villain the James Bond series has ever done. First of all, after the last Dalton film, they notably tried to get away from Soviet shit as it seemed outdated. Six years later, they go right back to it for the Brosnan debut. And it certainly feels stale. A rogue Russian general stirring up shit is nothing new for Bond, but the wrinkle is downright bizarre. Sean Bean plays a descendent of Nazi-aligned Soviet traitors who survived the purge. The fact that the British did not SAVE his ancestors – who again, were aligned to the NAZIS – is supposed to be something we empathize with him about I think.

 

8. Curt Jürgens [The Spy Who Loved Me]

“I intend to change the face of history.”

I have never been able to articulate why exactly, but villains who are looking to instigate World War III (and thus reveal how fragile the insane status quo of the world is) are just more interesting than people who more broadly are seeking world domination. Karl Stromberg is a fucking weirdo who likes the oceans and fish too much and also wants to put the US and Soviet Union against each other. It’s good clean fun. He is once again a fresh reminder that getting away from SPECTRE is always great for Bond.

 

7. Christopher Walken [A View to a Kill]

Christopher Walken is hilarious and fun in this role. His big plan is to end Silicon Valley so we really have to question who is the hero and who is the villain of the story.

 

6. Jonathan Pryce [Tomorrow Never Dies]

Jonathan Pryce effortlessly synthesizes Steve Jobs and Charles Foster Kane to make the most evil person ever. It is very funny. One of the best Bond villains ever without a doubt.

 

5. Gert Fröbe [Goldfinger]

Auric Goldfinger is one of the classic Bond Villains. There are many notable aspects to his character but one thing that stood out was that his plan felt more practical in terms of motivation and less megalomaniacal – which I enjoyed. Sure, the plan is insane, but, like, he is just trying to make himself richer. He is not trying to take over the world! The other big aspect of Goldfinger is how much he likes to play with his food. It is a concept that can cut the tension in most movies because kills the suspension of disbelief. Goldfinger seems to genuinely get off on it though so it works.

 

4. Christopher Lee [The Man with the Golden Gun]

Christopher Fucking Lee. It is remarkable how much just having a truly imposing and intimating presence in the role makes for a much better James Bond villain. I also just in general though like the dynamic he brought to the film. He was a cocky sharpshooter who admired James Bond in a way and his personal ambitions were not as dull as the take-over-the-world guys the movies did way too often.

 

3. Mathieu Amalric [Quantum of Solace]

Mathieu Amalric is playing Elon Musk. He is posing as an environmental corporate hero that is going to save the planet. Instead he is working with the CIA and traitorous white Latino South American military generations to depose reformist/revolutionary Latin America governments in order to privatize their water supplies (and other natural resources). This is one of the very best villains they have ever had.

 

2. Javier Bardem [Skyfall]

Skyfall leans on a number of well-used villain ideas and the charisma of Javier Bardem to create one of the most fun bad guys in James Bond history. Sure, he’s doing a little Joker, but he’s really more of a foil for James in the classical sense. He and James have very similar circumstances but ended up taking different paths. Bardem’s character also really captures the themes of the series. Sure, this he is a living warning of wha can happen to James, but it’s even more than that. Bardem represents the toxicity of this world they live in and prop up. It poisons them. And quite literally mutilates them.

 

1. Mads Mikkelsen [Casino Royale]

Along with the best Bond performance and the best Bond woman, the best Bond film ever unsurprisingly also had the very best Bond villain. Mads was just incredible in this film, and they really did a great job with his character. There is a desperation to him because he is merely a smaller player in a much larger world. They also avoided the trap of hiding the big bad by not announcing that there is a big bad guy. Mads was a big fish in a puddle, and we did not know about the ocean his puddle trickled into until the end. This should be a model for how to make a villain for any franchises that have aspirations to make a series of interconnected films that need bad guys that are not their big bad.