Bond Villains Ranked From Worst to Best: Every 007 Villain From Dr. No to Silva, Scored

Rough Cut Review ranked the principal villain of each of the first 23 Eon-produced Bond films, from Dr. No in 1962 to Skyfall in 2012, in a single table of 21 entries. Blofeld counts once across his three on-screen portrayals, and Kananga and his alter ego Mr. Big count as one. The goal is a James Bond villains ranked list that can be argued with, because each placement traces back to a score.

The method is fixed: story and structure 35, performances 25, craft 25, rewatch value 15; full rewatch before any placement; lists reviewed quarterly and within 30 days of a new release. Each villain receives a score from 0 to 10 on every criterion. Story and structure here means the scheme and its role in the film: is the plan clear, is it threatening and does it drive the plot. Performances covers the acting. Craft covers design, staging and menace. Rewatch value asks how much the villain adds on a second viewing.

The weights multiply each score and add up to a total out of 100. A villain with a brilliant actor and a muddled plan cannot reach the top, and a great plan carried by a weak performance cannot either. Readers who want the worst to best order can read the table from the bottom row up or follow the walk below, which runs worst to best, and any placement can be traced to the column that moved it. That is the reason these Bond villains ranked placements can be argued with in specifics. Under that method, the best Bond villains are the ones that score well on both story and performance.

The entries below run worst to best, from twenty-first place to first, so in this James Bond villains ranked walk the weakest come first and the best Bond villains arrive last. The top tier is anchored by figures who defined the series, the middle by strong performances in uneven films, and the bottom by schemes that never took shape. For the full series, see the James Bond guide, and for other lists see Rankings.

21. Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé, The Living Daylights, 1987)

Jeroen Krabbé's Koskov fakes a defection to set up an arms and drug scheme, and the plan is never clear enough to care about. The performance is energetic and the character is a bore. The Living Daylights is a solid Bond film in spite of him, and last place here reflects how little the story needed his scheme.

20. Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, Quantum of Solace, 2008)

Mathieu Amalric's Dominic Greene hides a plan to control Bolivia's water supply behind an environmentalist front. It is a timely idea with a forgettable face. Greene is instantly forgotten once the credits roll.

19. Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, Die Another Day, 2002)

Toby Stephens plays Gustav Graves as an unbearable blend of arrogance and self-regard, which is fair for a villain. The twist, that he is really North Korean colonel Tan-Sun Moon, remade by gene therapy, pushes the film toward cartoon territory. The Icarus satellite plot is as outlandish as the face swap.

18. Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover, For Your Eyes Only, 1981)

Julian Glover's Kristatos is among the rare villains whose treachery is hidden until late in the film. Surprise should help, but he is a plain, solid antagonist in a film that is otherwise strong. The subplot involving the young ice skater Bibi does him no favors.

17. Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens, The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)

Karl Stromberg has webbed fingers and a plan to start a nuclear war so he can build a new civilization beneath the sea. Curd Jürgens plays him with detachment. The Spy Who Loved Me is a fine Bond film that does not need him to be as good as it is.

16. Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale, Moonraker, 1979)

Michael Lonsdale's Hugo Drax wants to wipe out humanity and replace it with a chosen few in space. That is a huge plan, and Lonsdale plays it with an unbothered calm that is funny in the wrong ways. The Older Rich Man type of villain, who gives orders and never lifts a finger, finds its fullest expression here.

15. Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997)

Jonathan Pryce plays a media baron who starts wars to sell newspapers and secure broadcast rights in China. The idea was ahead of its time, and Elliot Carver is a good satire of the news cycle. He rarely poses a physical threat and spends most of the film complaining that Bond is still alive, which turns a sharp concept into a middling villain.

14. Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto, Live and Let Die, 1973)

Yaphet Kotto plays two men: Dr. Kananga, the ruler of the fictional island of San Monique, and Mr. Big, a Harlem crime boss. It is the only dual identity among the Bond villains, and the scheme to give away heroin and bankrupt rivals is practical and grim. The crocodile farm adds a classic touch. The plot is a little small, and the performance deserves a larger film.

13. Max Zorin (Christopher Walken, A View to a Kill, 1985)

Christopher Walken was born to play a Bond villain, and the screenplay does not give him enough to do. Max Zorin is the product of a Nazi genetic experiment and plans to flood Silicon Valley to corner the microchip market, which is a wild idea played with unusual restraint. The result is watchable and a little frustrating, a great actor in a role that never quite explodes.

12. Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan, Octopussy, 1983)

Louis Jourdan gives Kamal Khan a velvet voice and a taste for beautiful objects. He pronounces the title word with a relish that is worth the ticket alone. He also moves comfortably between a smuggling ring and a Soviet general, which makes the plot more interesting than most. He cheats at backgammon, which is a small crime and a fitting one.

11. Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya, From Russia with Love, 1963)

Lotte Lenya's Rosa Klebb is the architect of the plot in From Russia with Love, with a poison-tipped shoe blade and a manner that makes a simple conversation feel like an interrogation. Other figures in the film, from the chess master Kronsteen to the killer Red Grant, claim a share of the villainy, but she runs it. Her small stature and flat voice are what make her frightening.

10. Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen, Casino Royale, 2006)

Mads Mikkelsen's scarred banker to terrorists gets every detail right: the weeping eye, the cold stare, the poker table where he sweats. Le Chiffre belongs in the top ten for performance alone. What holds him back is the plot. He is eliminated too early to be the film's last obstacle, and the story that follows needs a villain who can carry it.

9. Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean, GoldenEye, 1995)

Alec Trevelyan is the only Double-O agent turned enemy, and Sean Bean plays him as Bond's equal with a chip on his shoulder. The fight between the two in GoldenEye feels like a rivalry with history, not a scripted duel. The twist, that 006 faked his death years earlier, gives the film its strongest scene.

8. Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi, Licence to Kill, 1989)

In the hands of Robert Davi, a drug lord becomes the series' most plausible threat. Franz Sanchez is brutal in a way that feels real, and the personal grudge he creates by maiming Felix Leiter gives Bond a reason to go rogue. Licence to Kill is the darkest film of the early run, and Sanchez is the reason. His world has no secret volcano base, only money and violence, and that restraint is the reason he still feels recent.

7. Dr. Julius No (Joseph Wiseman, Dr. No, 1962)

Joseph Wiseman set the template with the very first Bond villain: a soft-spoken scientist with two metal hands who works for SPECTRE and talks like a man who has never been argued with. Dr. No is not complex, but he is frightening, and his private island started the tradition of a lair as the villain's calling card. Without him there is no series, which earns him a place in the top tier even if the plot is thin.

6. Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi, Thunderball, 1965)

Adolfo Celi's Largo is SPECTRE's number two, an eye-patched, yacht-owning aristocrat with a shark pool at home and two stolen nuclear warheads on the way. The film gives him charm and a physical presence, and the combination makes him the best of the early henchman-grade villains. He loses points only because Thunderball spends so long underwater that he leaves the screen for stretches.

5. Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee, The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974)

Christopher Lee makes Scaramanga a mirror of Bond: a sharp-dressed professional killer who charges one million dollars a contract and treats the duel as a courtesy. The Man with the Golden Gun is a weaker film than Lee deserves, and the villain is the best thing in it. The final contest on Scaramanga's island is shot with more care than anything around it.

4. Elektra King (Sophie Marceau, The World Is Not Enough, 1999)

Sophie Marceau's oil heiress is the best twist in the Brosnan era. She arrives as a kidnapping survivor, and the film slowly shows her to be the author of her own captivity, with Bond mistaking his own sympathy for evidence. It is a rare Bond film in which the woman who seems to need protection is the one in control. Her bond to Bond's past, with echoes of Tracy, adds sting to the finale.

3. Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem, Skyfall, 2012)

Silva is the only villain on this list who truly threatens Bond's world from inside. A former MI6 agent betrayed by M, he is played by Javier Bardem with a theatrical menace that borders on camp and never crosses the line. His plan is personal and lethal, and the consequences hit the series harder than almost any other. Skyfall also uses him to probe Bond himself, a trick no earlier villain managed so completely.

2. Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe, Goldfinger, 1964)

Gert Fröbe's gold-obsessed industrialist is the most quotable villain in the series. Auric Goldfinger cheats at cards, laughs at threats and plans to contaminate the gold in Fort Knox so that his own supply becomes worth more. The scheme is audacious and perfectly clear, which is the combination Bond films work best with. The scene with the laser beam, and its ruthless reply to Bond's question, is the template for every villain speech that followed.

1. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, 1967 to 1971)

The man who ran SPECTRE earns first place for staying power. Pleasence, Savalas and Gray each played him face to face with Bond, and the character also reached the series earlier as a pair of hands and a stroked cat in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and as a faceless figure in For Your Eyes Only. He is the architect of the Tracy tragedy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which gave the series its deepest wound. No other villain is as hard to separate from the franchise's own mythology. The weakness is that he is three performances, not one. Savalas brings the sharpest physical menace, and Pleasence's scarred, quiet Blofeld set the template parodied ever since. Christoph Waltz later played the character in Spectre (2015), outside the scope of this list.