“Goodbye, Mr. Bond.” This simple phrase has been spoken many times throughout the James Bond film series, always laced with malevolence and hatred. These words are usually the precursor to the final battle that invariably sees our hero win the day and our villain meet his maker. But, of these many evil souls, which ones posed the greatest threat to 007? Who were the most badass of the lot? Question no more – here is a list of the ten most badass James Bond villains!
Gerte Frobbe was overweight, balding and didn’t even speak English. Yet he remains the single most quoted Bond baddie (you know what I’m talking about.) But he did give us a valuable lesson in the dangers of cabin depressurization.
Talks the Talk: “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!”
Years before he got eaten by that shark, Robert Shaw was kicking some Connery ass as this ruthless SPECTRE heavyweight. The train brawl is still among the most brutal in Bond history.
Talks the Talk: “The first one won’t kill you. Not the second. Not even the third. Not until you crawl over here and kiss my foot!”
The quintessential Bond baddie, complete with shaved head, Kim-Jong Il tunic and white fluffy cat. Met a rather unceremonious end at the bottom of a smoke stack.
Walks the Walk: Feeding insubordinate minions to ravenous pirhanas. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Who could forget the pint-sized KGB pitbull that proved that not all Bond girls have to be easy on the eyes.
Walks the Walk: Dispatching an underling with her famous poison-tipped clogs
Innuendo aside (and man this movie’s full of it), Christopher “Dracula” Lee’s icy cool hitman was almost too much for Roger Moore. Almost.
Walks the Walk: Pleasuring his girlfriend with his signature gold pistol. Paging Dr. Freud…
This former 006 has all of Bond’s suave resourcefulness and none of the scruples. Plus he had a cool underwater fortress and a badass scar on his eye, two essentials for any self-respecting supervillain.
Talks the Talk: “I gave you three minutes, Bond. The same three minutes you gave me.”
Okay, so he’s just a henchman. But unlike the others, he has staying power. Oh, and he’s also a 7-foot-tall, metal-mouthed gorilla.
Walks the Walk: Killing a shark with those trademark pearly-whites. A friggin’ shark.
Ah, the ubiquitous drug lord, the signature supervillain of the 80s. Robert Davi brought a cool menace to an otherwise ho-hum entry.
Talks the Talk: “What did he promise you, his heart? Give her his heart!”
Definitely one of the weakest of the series, but hey, any film that involves Christopher Walken maniacally swinging an axe high above the Golden Gate Bridge can’t be all bad.
Walks the Walk: Gleefully machine-gunning dozens of helpless flood victims.
Maybe not the most physically intimidating baddie on the list, but Mads Mikkelson’s creepy asthmatic proved a nasty foil.
Walks the Walk: Handing New Bond an Old School beat-down at the business end of a knotted rope. Ouch.
Contributor: Tequila Mockingbird
A small clarification–Jaws was first featured in “The Spy Who Loved Me,” not “Moonraker”–where he switched sides at the end against his boss, Drax, and fought alongside Bond on the spacestation.
The older ones are the best. Can’t even remember the names of the more recent baddies, let alone remember how BAD they were!
Great list JF, I’ve seen all of these movies and I always kept telling friends to check them out. Although I was hoping to see Alec Trevelyan in 1st.
No Dr. No?
Great list, especially because Mads Mikkelsen (not Mikkelson BTW
)and Jesper Christensen is playing bad guys in it! … Go Denmark! 
In Casino Royale that is… can we please have the edit button back?!? :p
FTR it is “Good luck with the floor James. I’ve set the timers for six minutes, the same six minutes you gave me. It was the least I could do for a friend” Then the russian chick asks wtf that means and Bond says “We’ve got 3 minutes.”
Not trying to be rude, but if you are gonna put a quote you gotta get it right!
well I posted a much longer post but it did not all fit apparently….so here is the rest!
Another great quote from this movie:
“I might as well ask you if all those vodka martinis ever silence the screams of all the men you’ve killed… or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for all the dead ones you failed to protect.”
Things like this are why I think he should have been #1. Because he knew Bond, and had prior experience as a 00 agent; He was able to mess with Bond’s head more than anyone else, and also was able to compete with Bond using all of his own moves and strategies. He was a traitor, which made him even lower of a low on the villian scale. Not to mention he had Famke Janssen as his badgirl (drool). In fact the son of a ***** might have pulled off killing Bond, had that nerdy russian geek Borris (Alan Cummings) not messed it all up. “I am invincible!” NO YOU’RE NOT YOU JACKASS!
BTW you have an obsession with the new Casino Royal movie, frankly it is scewing your judgement!
Jaws should be at number one, definitely. The guy has metal teeth ffs, how can you get more bad-ass than that!? LeChiffre *****s himself when he gets confronted with two guys with swords, he’s not badass.
Oh, and Blofeld is kick-ass simply for spawning Dr Evil!
There’s no way Trevelyan was a better villain than Xenia in Goldeneye! She was (by far) the best part of that movie!
Dr. No.
I never really seen the Connery films, so Roger Moore is my fave Bond, so maybe I dont know what Im talking about but this list seems really out of order. Top 5 is a bad guy from the weakest Brosnan film, a bad guy from the weakest Moore film, a bad guy from the weak Dalton era, and the bad guy from the newest movie “Poker Game of Doom”, I mean casino royale? Better watch out for the Connery/Bond purists!
Good list but I would get rid of Jaws in favor of Dr. No. I just can’t take Jaws seriously just for the ending of Moonraker.
Sean Bean, always delivering a *****y bad guy. Bold movie putting LeChiffre in the number one spot, that is bound to cause some twittering
I’m sorry, Tequila Mockingbird, but this list is skewed. I very rarely speak out about lists being off-base, because for the most part my contentions are small and not worth bringing up. However, this list is all wrong. LeChiffre was among the lamest Bond villians; he was cowardly, weak, and while smart, was not the supergenius that many Bond villians profess to be. Your entries #10 and #8 should be #2 and #1 respectively, as anyone who has paid attention to James Bond knows that for the bulk of the series, SPECTRE was Bond’s most dangerous arch-enemy, and not only was Blofeld the *head* of SPECTRE, he is also among the most iconic movie villians EVER, not just in the Bond series. While I agree that both Franz and Max deserve a place on the list, they are much, much too high. Both are scheming, evil, and intelligent but neither one really qualifies as a “badass.” That being said, I would have thought that Dr. No would be on here. Sorry, Mockingbird, it was a noble effort and I don’t mean to make you feel picked-on. I’m just a total Bond-phile.
By the way, the line for Alec Trevelyan is “I gave you six minutes Bond, the same six minutes you gave me.” Which in fact was only three minutes.
This list is backwards. Goldfinger should be no.1 and LeChiffre should be no.10….or removed in favour of Dr. No !!
SlickWilly is correct. Sometimes there is an absolute truth to seemingly subjective questions. Blofeld has to be at the top of the list. Also, you didn’t include the actors’ names on a couple of the entries. Other than that, good job.
Sean Bean is so hot.
Oops! I submitted the list backwards. Should culminate with Goldfinger rather than the other way around. My mistake.
Lame.
I found Franz Sanchez to be the most “bad-ass”, especially how he dealt with traitors and enemies.
Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil makes Blofeld seem cartoonish in retrospect. Goldfinger was clever and evil, but “bad-ass”? not really. Jaws could definitely kick your ass, but he was a thug. Le Chiffre and Scaramanga were, again, clever and twisted (and rich), but bad-ass? no.
Tequila, I hope your not flip-flopping on your position because of public opinion! We’re getting enough of that in the election
I think the former 006, Alec Trevelyan should have been higher up in the list. James Bond’s closest friend-turned enemy. He was a great villian. Turned madman over a misunderstanding (Bond saw Trevelyan shot at point-blank range, so he left, but Trevelyan survived and apparently wasn’t happy Bond left him).
The reason he’s a great villian is because he’s ruthless to those who oppose him, he’s clearly crazy (see the reason above), he’s suffering from internal conflict stemming back to his parents involving the Government, and he’s James Bond’s former friend, so the two of them almost literally know what the other is about to do. He also uses that fact as a psychological tool against Bond.
No other villian could pull all that off. They’re bad just for power. Alec Trevelyan is bad for power and revenge on two seperate levels.
Great list. I love them all, I love
Franz Sanchez from Goonies fame
http://www.atomicpopcorn.net
Tequila: Ah! That makes much more sense, yes, indeed I’d be much happier with this list if were reversed in order.
islanderbst: Flip-flopping, schmlip-flopping. It is the right decision!
Being that A View to a Kill was a weaker movie I was happy to see that Walken still made the cut.
Walken and Duran Duran made that movie.
Maxx I agree with you, since I said practically the exact smae thing about half way up the page =D
Oddjob should totally be on here… he is the precursor to Jaws!!! Not only did his hat have the ability to decapitate people he crushed a golf ball with his hand!!
I’d like to see anyone of you try and do that…
And he’s one of the ONLY henchmen to get a shout out in the Austin Powers movies, which as we all know is the ultimate homage to The James Bond series.
(Sorry for the double post, I second getting the edit button back Jamie.)
ah tequila, that makes sense. I was totally thinking that the list would be much better in the opposite direction. Thanks for explaining!
And yup, Sean Bean is still hot. Glad I checked back to make sure.
SlickWilly; I agree the Le Chiffre was not really bad-ass but I did find him to be one of the most disturbing bond villains. Probably because he is less cartoonish than most, there are people like that out there. You forgot to mention how much SPECTRE seeped into popular culture. Everything from Get Smart (CHAOS)to The Rocky and Bullwinkle show.
haha #3 my last name is Sanchez lol
there was an episode of mythbusters with #4 in it too
Jaws should be in top 3 and Dr. No should be on here, besides that, though, good idea for a list.
I personally liked Emilio Largo. I might get ostracized for that comment, but Thunderball was the first Bond film I ever saw. Now I find it very slow…but as a kid, I thought he was a bad ass.
God, the nut-crushing scene in Casino Royale seriously made me nauseus. I saw it on opening night and during that scene everyman in the room groaned.
sdggrant: i remember trying to figure out what was about to happen during that scene. even when he pulled out the rope i didn’t really know. then i felt my nuts shrivel when he got it started.
what sadistic, man-hating bastard thought of that?
Theres a nut-crushing scene in Casino Royale?!? Well, Just ruin the whole movie for me, “Sdggrant”! ….
Sheesh! Serious. Spoiler Alert!
Hello?
…..
naw, just foolin.
p.s I am Big Dummy
It’s Gert Fröbe not Gerte Frobbe!
Scaramanga should be first, because, unlike all other Bond villains, he did all his own dirty work. Except for the few people his midget henchman killed. (Yes he had a midget henchman.) His gun was assembled made out of a cigarette box, cuff links, a cigarette lighter, and a pen. Plus, Christopher Lee was Ian Fleming’s cousin.
Great list, but where’s Baron Samedhi? He’s literally the god of death…
LeChiffre? Really? come on! The guy didn’t even succeed at anything, the whole point of him being at the poker game was because he owed African terrorists a ***** tonne of their cash that was stolen from him, the only reason bond was after him was because of his vital connection to those terrorists; Walken should be at the top because he’s Christopher *****ing Walken.
A View to a Kill would have been better with more cowbell.
Uhm…. Scaramanga was not played by Christopher Lee…. ‘Twas Ricardo Montalban
I gotta go with that Soviet/KGB/SPECTRE uber ***** Rosa Klebb. She seemed like she would have been right at home in some Nazi death camp doing interrogations, or running a gulag in Siberia, or pulling fingernails in a Viet Cong prison camp. The blank doll’s eyes, no emotion except rage, and the commie brown moo-moo, all that whipped cream topped off with a poision toe razor cherry. Reminds me of my first grade teacher.
Anyhooo – Goldfinger # 1, Dr No, # 2, Kananga/Mr. Big # 3. Probably need Largo in there somewhere too.
And sorry corinthian, Scaramanga was Christopher Lee. Ricardo was Kahn.
This list was just shaken not stirred
Moonraker was so very corny. I never liked Roger Moore’s bond.
the villain from casino royale looks EXACTLY like christopher walken. ironically they are listed 1 and 2.
“Live and Let Die” Baron Samadi – The Man Who Cannot Die!!!!!!!!!
and I’m sorry, but Rosa Klebb will always be Frau Farbissna in disguise LOL
JAWS !!!!
and SC for bond.
new bond was kinda lame ^^
as was Roger More but he had the better scripts.
nuff sed
Piere Fanboyz Muhuhahaha or is that Pierre?
Donavan Grant (Robert Shaw in FRWL) and Dario (Benicio del Toro in LTK)!
alec trevelyan should be number 1 and its i gave you 6 minutes the same 6 minutes you gave me not 3 he gives bond 3 butcause 006 says at the begining of the film set the charges to 6 minutes james james does but general omarov captures him so bond quickly changes it to 3 im abit of a hardcorre bond fan lol so sorry if im being abit of a prefectionist but other than that good job
Damn, I’m surprised Oddjob isn’t on this list. I thought for sure he’d be #1.
Where’s Dr. No?
Sunteti varza !!!
V-o spune Tom, Tom Beron …