James Bond Finale - Top 5 Bond Villains

The villain is probably the most important character in a Bond film.  A good villain can save an otherwise horrible film like The Man With the Golden Gun, a mediocre villain can drag down a film that otherwise might have been something much greater, like Dr. No, and a bad villain has the ability to make a Bond film reek, like Live and Let Die and Octopussy.  Here our my Top 5 main Bond villains.

If there's anyone who deserves being a Bond villain it's Christopher Lee, British film icon and one of the two long standing faces of the Hammer Films legacy in the 1950's - 1970's.  Majorly recognized for his long standing role as Count Dracula who could be a more formidable foe for Bond?  As I stated in the Top 5 Bond Henchmen post the villains of The Man With The Golden Gun saved another mediocre Roger Moore adventure.  While Scaramanga may not be one of Bond's most recognized villains his one shot golden gun has gone down in Bond history.  And had the film been halfway decent Scaramanga might rank a little higher on the list, but it should be enough that Lee makes a bad Bond film better and for that makes it worth checking out.

Blofeld, the only real reoccurring villain in the Bond franchise is played by a different actor every-time he's shown on screen.  Ultimately this continual recasting makes Blofeld one of the more mediocre villains in the franchise because the character becomes a joke, but one actor portrayed the character brilliantly even though it was only for about five minutes.  Donald Pleasance provides the best characterization of the leader of SPECTRE in Sean Connery's half-hearted attempt in You Only Live Twice (easily Connery's worst Bond film).  Pleasance had the look and the performance down it's unfortunate he was never offered to continue the role.

Contrary to popular opinon the Bond franchise has had a main female villain with Sophie Marceau's portrayal of Elektra King.  Marceau was big in the 90's, but you don't hear much about her anymore.  Considered somewhat of the poor man's Monica Bellucci, Marceau does a fine job portraying The World Is Not Enough's seemingly damsel in distress oil tycoon Elektra King who turns out to be more than a pretty face.  It's a nice change to see a female villain with a larger role and she does an amazing job of staying sexy and dangerous at the same time.  It's what I imagine Luciana Paluzzi's role would have been like in Thunderball if she had been a main villain instead of a henchman.

My all-time favorite Bond film features an outstanding cast and some wonderful villains.  Emilio Largo is Thunderball's answer to the previous Bond installment's villain, Auric Goldfinger, and it's a nice match.  Largo is a little less witty than Goldfinger and more straight to the point, he's also a bit more menacing something most main Bond villains failed to have going for them.

Easily the most well known Bond films, and in many peoples eyes the best, Goldfinger marks the arrival of the Bond franchise's first excellent main villain, Auric Goldfinger.  Prior to this the first two Bond films were mostly littered with a slew of minor villains (henchman) with the main villains having very little to do in the majority of the story, Goldfinger changes all that.  Goldfinger is the staple villain that the sets the tide for all future well crafted villains in the franchise's future, smart, amusing, menacing and most of all memorable.