Today and tomorrow shall bear witness to the fruits of my half-year Bond marathon: a collection of lists, ranking the franchise in various categories. Because if there’s one thing we love even more than big damn retrospectives here at Antagony & Ecstasy, it’s following big damn retrospectives with lists.
First up: the most important ingredient in any Bond picture, the bad guys, from the vibrantly psychopathic to the unspeakably bland, or worse. Here and elsewhere, links go to my reviews.
1. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance), You Only Live Twice
-1a. Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre), Casino Royale [1954]
2. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
3. Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), Goldfinger
4. Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), GoldenEye
5. Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), The Man with the Golden Gun
6. Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), Licence to Kill
7. Brad Whitford (Joe Don Baker), The Living Daylights
8. Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), Casino Royale [2006]
9. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Anthony Dawson), From Russia with Love
10. Dominc Greene (Mathieu Amalric), Quantum of Solace
11. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray), Diamonds Are Forever
-11a. Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), Never Say Never Again
12. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), Live and Let Die
13. Silva (Javier Bardem), Skyfall
14. Ari Kristatos (Julian Glover), For Your Eyes Only
15. Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), No Time to Die
16. Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), Dr. No
17. Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), The World Is Not Enough
18. Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), Moonraker
19. Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), Spectre
20. General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé), The Living Daylights
21. Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), Octopussy
22. Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), Die Another Day
23. Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), Thunderball
24. Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), Tomorrow Never Dies
-24a. Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen), Casino Royale [1967]
25. Karl Stromberg (Curt Jürgens), The Spy Who Loved Me
26. Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), A View to a Kill