Continuing with a new James Bond list, this week we will be ranking the main James Bond villains. Again, Never Say Never Again is eligible to be included with the EON series.
So rank the main James Bond villains according to your personal preference.
Here’s my rankings:
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Franz Sanchez – (Robert Davi) – LICENCE TO KILL
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Kamal Khan & Orlov – (Louis Jourdan & Steven Berkoff) – OCTOPUSSY
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Auric Goldfinger – (Gert Fröbe) – GOLDFINGER
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Emilio Largo – (Adolfo Celi) – THUNDERBALL
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Karl Stromberg – (Curd Jürgens) – THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
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Alec “Janus” Trevelyan 006 – (Sean Bean) – GOLDENEYE
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Max Zorin – (Christopher Walken) – A VIEW TO A KILL
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Ross “Mr. Big” Kananga – (Yaphet Kotto) – LIVE AND LET DIE
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Hugo Drax – (Michael Lonsdale) – MOONRAKER
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Elliot Carver – (Jonathan Pryce) – TOMORROW NEVER DIES
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Julius No – (Joseph Wiseman) – DR. NO
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld – (Telly Savalas) – ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE
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Tan-Sun Moon aka Gustav Graves – (Will Yun Lee aka Toby Stephens) – DIE ANOTHER DAY
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Brad Whitaker & Georgi Koskov – (Joe Don Baker & Jeroen Krabbé) – THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
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Maximilian Largo – (Klaus Maria Brandauer) – NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN
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Elektra King – (Sophie Marceau) – THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
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Aris Kristatos – (Julian Glover) – FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
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Le Chiffre – (Mads Mikkelsen) – CASINO ROYALE
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Francisco “Pistols” Scaramanga – (Christopher Lee) – THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
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Raoul Silva – (Javier Bardem) – SKYFALL
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld – (Donald Pleasence) – YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld – (Charles Gray) – DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
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Rosa Klebb – (Lotte Lenya) – FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld – (Christoph Waltz) – SPECTRE
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Dominic Greene – (Mathieu Amalric) – QUANTUM OF SOLACE
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Lyutsifer Safin – (Rami Malek) – NO TIME TO DIE
I love Robert Davi’s Franz Sanchez–evil in every way and a physical threat to Bond. I also love Louis Jourdan’s suave Kamal Khan villain and the way he talks. I know I like both Die Another Day’s and The Living Daylights’ villains more than most, but I just enjoy Toby Stephens’ smarmy, over-the-top performance and I find Joe Don Baker’s Brad Whitaker a funny character/guy with some memorable one-liners (“You know, you could have been a live, rich man instead of a poor dead one.” And, “You’ve had your eight, now I’ll have my 80!”)
On the other hand, I don’t seem to like The Man With The Golden Gun and Skyfall’s villains as much as others. Christopher Lee’s Francisco Scaramanga is fine, but he doesn’t do a whole lot. And Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva just keeps going on about M and killing her, but doesn’t really do anything about it. He has her in his sights twice (at the Whitehall meeting and the Skyfall church) and doesn’t pull the trigger.
I also feel bad about ranking Rosa Klebb so low. I like her villain, but she also doesn’t have a lot to do so I think that drags her down in my rankings a bit. But really, the only villain I don’t like is Lyutsifer Safin. He’s very weak. Easily the worst of the series. Actually, looking at my list, the Daniel Craig films really suffer in this department. Three of his villains are at the very bottom of my list and, of the other two, none rank higher than 18th, so hopefully the new Amazon Bond film will improve on the recent villains. Shoot, they can’t do much worse than the last one.