Welcome back to another special edition of James Bond Revisited! Last time out, we counted down the Best James Bond Villains of all time, and now, we’re moving on to the Best Bond Girls Ranked! Now, you can’t have a James Bond film without a Bond Girl. They’re as essential to the series as the man himself, but what makes a good Bond girl, and who was the best? We’ll give you our opinion on Bond Girls Ranked! Over the years, the term “Bond girl” undoubtedly evolved. While some early Bond girls might have been window-dressing to some extent, they became strong, often empowered characters pretty early on in the franchise. This is something the franchise isn’t usually given credit for. As we move towards the release of the latest 007 film, No Time to Die, we have a female character, Lashana Lynch, carrying the 007 designation when the film begins. At the same time, a returning Lea Seydoux and Ana de Armas are the movie’s more traditional Bond girls (I assume). Let us know in the talkbacks what you think of our Bond Girls Ranked choices and how you feel the role has evolved over the years. And yes, we’ll be back in two weeks with a brand new James Bond Revisited, counting down to the release of No Time to Die on October 8th!
But before we get to the list, let me just say one thing. We are not including villainesses because they were already on the James Bond villain list, including, of course, Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp, who most certainly would have made this list if she hadn’t already been included in the villains list. Well, nobody gets onto the list twice.
So, without further ado, kicking off the best-ever James Bond girls with number 10—who’s probably gonna be a bit of a controversial choice—but it’s Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock in For Your Eyes Only. Now, something interesting started to happen with Roger Moore as he got older. One of the things about him is that he was in his mid-50s already by the time he made Moonraker, and by the time he made For Your Eyes Only, he was about 54 years old. He wasn’t a young guy, so what they started to do was tone down his randiness a little bit. If you watch For Your Eyes Only, he’s actually pretty mature in this film. He doesn’t jump into bed with every Bond girl he sees. Lynn-Holly Johnson’s character, who’s in her 20s and a skater, tries to seduce him, and of course, he tells her he’s just gonna buy her some ice cream instead. He does sleep with Cassandra Harris’s Countess von Lisl and Carole Bouquet’s Melina, but of course, Melina is the main James Bond girl in this film. Bond never really pursues her romantically until kind of the end of the film because her parents have been killed, and she wants revenge. In this movie, she’s in kind of a fragile emotional state, and I think Bond realizes this and tones down the womanizing a little bit.
It’s an interesting thing to note because, at the beginning of the movie, he visits the grave of his late wife. In the Roger Moore Bond movies, they would acknowledge the fact that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with George Lazenby actually did happen and that Bond suffers from the fact that he’s a widower. So in this film, he’s already in that darker frame of mind. Of course, it is a much darker James Bond film than a lot of the other Roger Moore films, with him killing hitmen in cold blood and so on and so forth.
But I think that Carole Bouquet is really good as Melina. Even though she’s dubbed, I have to say some of her action scenes are quite good, such as the beginning of the film where she kills the assassin that murdered her parents. It’s pretty badass, and I love her weapon—the crossbow. For your eyes only, darling.
Number nine is Izabella Scorupco’s Natalia Simonova, a programmer at the Severnaya lab who survives the GoldenEye attack on the control center and ends up being kind of the default Bond girl for most of the movie. Her and Pierce Brosnan keep it kind of low-key—she’s supposed to be kind of this mousy lab technician. Of course, they get to Cuba, she wears a bikini, she looks unbelievably hot, they have sex—I mean, it’s a James Bond movie after all, right? I don’t know many computer programmers that look like Izabella Scorupco, but I always thought that she was quite good in this film. She kind of saves the day at the end of the movie with her knowledge of programming. Of course, she does get overshadowed a little bit by Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp, but I think she holds her own, especially towards the end of the movie where she tries to fight off Xenia and has that great moment where Famke kind of takes her and says, “Wait for your turn,” which, when I was a kid, I thought was really cool. She’s the primary Bond girl in this movie, and she’s a really good one.
Coming in at number eight—another controversial choice—Sophie Marceau as Elektra King. Now, this is kind of the first Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie where you can see he gets emotionally involved with a woman. And, of course, Elektra King is loosely based on Patty Hearst—she’s been kidnapped, she’s been turned over to the side of the villains, and she is fragile and flawed in some ways. She kind of ends up becoming the main villain in this movie, although not technically—I guess it’s still Renard. But I always thought that Marceau was amazing in this film, and I really like the chemistry she had with Pierce Brosnan. You feel, in the movie, that he’s actually falling in love with her. The biggest mistake they made, of course, was when she eventually betrays Bond. Bond just immediately jumps into bed with Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones—who, of course, is beautiful but is a terrible character and probably one of the worst Bond girls ever in terms of storyline or premise. So it kind of ruins the impact that relationship had. But on the whole, I have to say Sophie Marceau is terrific in this movie—and, of course, looks great too.
Number seven is one that not everybody is going to agree with me on—Maud Adams as Octopussy. Now, as I said, Roger Moore was getting a little bit long in the tooth by the time he made some of his later James Bond movies. But I really like the fact that they kind of acknowledge it. You know, there’s nothing wrong with James Bond being in his 50s or even in his 60s, as long as you adjust the formula a little bit. So in this movie, he got a love interest that was at least a little bit closer to his age than normal, with Maud Adams at the time being around 39. She’s terrific as this kind of kingpin on her own. She runs a team of gorgeous smugglers working for the circus, and she has really good chemistry with Roger Moore. I especially like the fact that her whole premise is taken right out of the Ian Fleming novels, where her father was a secret agent who betrayed the government and was offered an honorable suicide by James Bond. Instead of wanting revenge, she kind of wants to jump his bones, right? I always thought that Maud Adams seemed to have a thing for Roger Moore, and it comes across in this film. The two of them have terrific chemistry together, and it’s no surprise that Maud Adams is really the only Bond girl to be in two movies as two separate characters. Pretty cool.
Number six is Barbara Bach as Major Anya Amasova, aka XXX. Now, The Spy Who Loved Me was the first James Bond movie where you got Bond paired up with another secret agent—or at least a Bond girl that was kind of on an even keel. You see, the thing is, she’s a badass in her own right and an amazing agent. She’s the top agent of the Soviet Union, and she and Bond have this interesting little cat-and-mouse game early in the film. Of course, they eventually decide to work together, and things go a lot better as she becomes an ally. But then they throw in an interesting wrinkle: her lover was actually killed by James Bond in a mission in the teaser, and she decides that after the mission is over, she’s going to kill him. Barbara Bach’s acting in this movie is a little bit wooden, but I actually think it works for this repressed Soviet character. The first time I watched the movie, I wasn’t so sure she was just going to immediately melt into James Bond’s arms at the end, which I think is pretty cool. I mean, it’s a James Bond movie—I figured she wasn’t going to kill him—but she does seem pretty angry with him. I always thought she was a great character and probably should have been brought back. But alas, they weren’t really doing that back then. I have to think that if Anya Amasova was a character nowadays, she’d probably get her own spin-off franchise or at least become a recurring character.
Number five is the original James Bond girl—Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder. Now, Honey Ryder is definitely not the most intriguing Bond girl ever—I mean, she’s kind of childlike and thinly written. But my God, that scene where Sean Connery sees Ursula Andress emerge on the beach in the white bikini with the knife is one of the most iconic sequences in cinema history. And for that alone, she really has to be on this list. Again, Honey is barely in the movie—she really becomes a big presence in the last half-hour. And it’s a very thinly written character, not very well dubbed either—that’s not Ursula Andress’s actual voice. But the visual aspect alone, and the fact that she’s so iconic, means she really deserves a spot here.
Number four: A more modern Bond girl—Halle Berry as Jinx, who actually almost got her own spin-off in a movie that was going to be directed by Steven Fries. Alas, a little movie called Catwoman came along and kind of ruined Halle Berry’s career as an action star—for a little while at least. Now, Die Another Day is probably the worst James Bond movie ever made, but Halle Berry had just won an Oscar and really is giving it her all. I think that had she been allowed to make an action movie, this would have been the thing that launched her, as opposed to something like Catwoman. I mean, you have to wonder—did she choose Catwoman over doing Jinx? There was a problem there, but I don’t think that actually was the case at all. I think things just kind of fell apart, unfortunately. Jinx is a great character. Halle Berry looks amazing in her orange bikini, which, of course, pays tribute to the James Bond girl we just mentioned—Ursula Andress. I also have to mention that Rosamund Pike in this film is absolutely gorgeous as Miranda Frost. But, of course, she’s a villainess—not a true James Bond girl.
Number three is probably the most important James Bond girl of all time—Diana Rigg as Contessa Tracy di Vicenzo, a.k.a. Mrs. James Bond, or Tracy Bond (for a little while, anyway). Now, you see, in 1969, George Lazenby was taking over the role of James Bond and was a complete unknown. So for the Bond girl, they wanted a big star. Brigitte Bardot was apparently originally approached, but it didn’t work out. Instead, they went with Diana Rigg, who was very famous at the time for playing Emma Peel on The Avengers—who was kind of like the female James Bond. In the movie, she plays the one woman that James Bond ever truly falls in love with, and they get married. I think that Diana Rigg is terrific in this movie. One thing that’s kind of cool is that, considering how physically capable she was, they did give her some fight scenes towards the end of the movie, which are pretty nifty. Every time I watch this movie, I want Tracy to get away, but she always ends up dying. It’s just what it is.
Number two is kind of an off-kilter choice, but I gotta say—I’ve always had a thing for Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier in Licence to Kill, one of my favorite James Bond movies ever that I think a lot of people just ignore. This is another Bond girl who’s probably as badass—or even more so—than James Bond is in this movie. I mean, she gets the best kill, throwing Benicio del Toro down the coke shredder, which is just completely insane and cold-blooded. And my God, is she ever beautiful. I thought she looked good in this movie at the beginning when you first see her, but man—there’s a part in the movie where they reveal her with short hair, impeccably tailored. It’s a jaw-dropping moment, and you see Timothy Dalton’s double take when he sees how good she looks with short hair—it’s hilarious. Man, could Carey Lowell ever pull off that hairdo. She’s really great in this movie. I love the character, I love her in the role, and I’m surprised that she didn’t go on to have a much bigger career on the big screen. Although, of course, she was on Law & Order for quite a while afterward, and Richard Gere got to marry her for a while. Anyway—what a lucky guy.
And number one is probably my favorite James Bond girl of all time—and another one that I would say is very important to the character—Vesper Lynd. Eva Green in Casino Royale? Perfection. Now, Eva Green is the whole package in this movie. I mean, look at her—she’s absolutely gorgeous. But Vesper Lynd is such a great character—much more interesting than she is on the page in Ian Fleming’s original novel. You see, she’s somebody who had a lover who betrayed her and now has to betray James Bond. She’s a really tortured character in the film, very three-dimensional. You can actually see her falling in love with Daniel Craig’s James Bond throughout the movie—and James Bond falling in love with her, too. She’s there for him after his—you know—private parts have essentially been, you know, deactivated to a certain extent by Le Chiffre. But she’s the one who gives him back his virility and potency. So there you go—if anyone could do it. I do love her in this movie. I think she gives the character a real tragic edge that makes the ending of the movie kind of devastating—especially when Bond tells M: “Why should I need more time? Job’s done. The bitch is dead.”
I mean—what a cold-blooded line. But Eva Green is so good in this movie. Again, I don’t understand why Eva Green isn’t one of the biggest stars in the world—because she’s got it all.
So that’s my list of the 10 greatest James Bond girls of all time. I’ve probably left some of your favorites off this list (Pussy Galore, anyone?), so make sure to tell me in the talkbacks who your top tens would have been. There were a lot that almost made my list, but for one reason or another, just didn’t.
