Bond villains reviewed by their own henchmen. Q Branch gadgets fought over at a white elephant swap. Blofeld’s volcano listed for sale. Moneypenny’s expense invoices, sorted by how hard they are to explain to accounting.
Ranking Bond ranks the characters, villains, gadgets and moments of the James Bond films, one strange rule per list. Goldfinger, Blofeld, Stromberg, Scaramanga, Jaws, Oddjob, M, Q, Miss Moneypenny and Felix Leiter all get judged here, along with Bond girls like Vesper Lynd, Pussy Galore and Tracy. Every list states its house rules up front and sticks to what the films actually show. Characters, not actors.
Pick Your Mission
- Licence to Kill: Close calls, rescues and villain lairs that exploded, sank or melted.
- Q Branch: Gadgets and vehicles, judged by standards MI6 never used.
- Shaken Not Stirred: Bond’s ego, as handled by the Bond girls who refuse to be impressed.
- For Your Eyes Only: Scene-level rankings for anyone who watches the timer instead of the explosion.
- Odd Jobs: The Bond world run through ordinary life: bosses, budgets and property.
Latest Rankings
What Does James Bond Drink? 18 Bottles to Stock Your 007 Bar
Champagne shows up in more of James Bond’s films than any other drink, with the vodka martini close behind. But his on-screen bar runs much deeper than those two. Across six decades he drinks bourbon, gin, rum, sake, raki, sherry, cognac, tequila, Scotch, claret and beer. So here’s the shopping list. These are the 18…
Category: Shaken Not StirredJames Bond Car Gadgets: 8 Rides, Rated by the Passenger
James Bond cars come loaded with gadgets, and now and then somebody has to sit next to the driver while he uses them. So we handed the passenger a rideshare app and asked for a rating. These are the James Bond car gadgets that went off with a passenger in the car, from the Aston…
Category: Q Branch8 Ways Die Hard with a Vengeance Echoes Goldfinger, Ranked by How Close They Get
Goldfinger set the standard for villains who go after a country’s gold. About three decades later, Die Hard with a Vengeance sent Simon Gruber after the gold beneath New York, and anyone raised on Bond will feel a familiar tug watching it. We’ve already let Austin Powers into a Bond list, so a Die Hard…
Category: For Your Eyes Only8 Invoices That Hit Moneypenny’s Desk, Ranked by How Hard They’d Be to Explain to Accounting
Moneypenny has sat outside M’s office since 1962, which means every bill James Bond sends home crosses her desk first. Most are easy. A car was destroyed, the car was expensive, here is the paperwork. Some of them are not easy at all. So we pulled eight invoices from the pile and ranked them by…
Category: Odd Jobs15 Funniest Lines in the Bond Films From Anyone Who Isn’t Bond (or a Bond Girl)
James Bond gets most of the one-liners in his own films. He has a quip ready for most of the henchmen he dispatches. This list is about everybody else: the people who hand him gadgets, sign off on his missions, try to kill him, or just happen to be standing nearby when he does something…
Category: For Your Eyes Only12 James Bond Films Ranked by How Easily Austin Powers Fits
Austin Powers is a British spy from 1967 who was frozen, thawed out in the 1990s and sent back to work against Dr. Evil. His films are a spoof of the Bond series, and the people who made them did their homework. Dr. Evil’s creator has said the character was based on Blofeld as he…
Category: Odd Jobs11 Best Put-Downs of James Bond by Bond Girls, Ranked by How Hard They Landed
James Bond gets the last word in most of his films. These are the scenes where he doesn’t, or where he does and it doesn’t help. We ranked eleven Bond girl quotes that put Bond in his place. Each one is judged on three things: how sharp it is, how accurate it is about him,…
Category: Shaken Not Stirred12 Best Bond Gadgets, Ranked as White Elephant Gifts
Every December, somebody brings a scented candle to the gift swap. Q Branch would not be caught dead with a scented candle. So we raided the lab. The game is white elephant: everyone brings one wrapped gift, and on your turn you either open a new box or steal one somebody else already opened. We…
Category: Q Branch3 Bond Countdown Clocks, Ranked by How Little Time Was Left (Plus 4 Bonus Clocks)
Every Bond villain with a bomb seems to buy the model with the big, easy-to-read clock on the front. It’s a strange feature for a weapon. The countdown mostly helps the hero, and the hero usually gets there. So we went through the readings. The rule: a clock, display or spoken countdown the audience can…
Category: For Your Eyes Only5 Times Bond’s Backup Let Him Down, Ranked by the Damage Done
CIA men, MI6 colleagues, local contacts: most of the time they’re the support network that makes a one-man mission possible. Every so often, they support Bond the way a wet paper bag supports groceries. This is a list of bad moments, not bad friends. Several people below do real good elsewhere in their films. House…
Category: For Your Eyes Only
Quick Answers
What is Ranking Bond? An unofficial fan site that ranks James Bond characters, villains and gadgets by unusual criteria.
Does it cover the actors? No. Characters only.