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 ranked the best Bond gadgets by steal appeal, which means three things: how fun the gift is to unwrap, how useful it is at home once the party is over, and how much chaos it causes when someone tries it out in the living room. Number 1 gets stolen the most. Number 12 goes home with whoever opened it.
The rules for getting in: a handheld or wearable gadget seen on screen that would fit in a gift box. No cars, boats or planes (they’re getting their own post), and nothing whose main job is killing, so the guns stay in the armory. A gadget with a stun charge or a small explosive tucked inside can still get in, as long as that isn’t the whole point of it. When two gadgets tied, the one that got more use in its own film won the spot. That happened once, at 6 and 7. As for the spending limit, Q has not read the invitation.
12 to 10: Mostly Safe From Theft
12. The Radio Beacon, Skyfall (2012)
The new Q handed Bond a palm-print pistol and a small radio that broadcasts his location. The pistol is a weapon, so it stays out of the box. That leaves the radio. Bond’s own review covered it: “A gun and a radio. Not exactly Christmas.” It did earn its keep. On Silva’s island, Bond used it to call in MI6, and Silva left in custody. At a party, though, it’s a device that tells everyone where you are, and where you are is the kitchen. Nobody is stealing this.
11. The Slot Machine Ring, Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
This one belonged to Q, who built an electromagnetic ring that controls a slot machine’s reels so the jackpot comes up on command. He tested it himself on the slots at the Whyte House casino, and the coins came pouring out. Brilliant in Las Vegas. At home it needs a slot machine, and most living rooms are short one. Somebody’s uncle will steal it on principle and put it in a drawer.
10. The Breather, Thunderball (1965)
Q handed Bond this pocket breathing device in the Bahamas, tucked inside a cigar tube, which makes it a terrific unwrap. Bond later used it in Largo’s shark pool, an evening we’ve covered before. The trouble starts after the paper comes off. At home, its entire job description is the bottom of a swimming pool. Great first impression, short second act. The one steal comes from the guest who owns a hot tub.
9 to 7: Stolen Once, Out of Politeness
9. The Magnetic Watch, Live and Let Die (1973)
Q’s modified watch packs a magnet strong enough, in theory, to bend the path of a bullet, plus a bezel that spins up into a tiny saw. Bond’s first test of the magnet was unzipping Miss Caruso’s dress. The saw earned its keep later, cutting Bond and Solitaire loose from a hoist over Kananga’s shark pool. At home it finds dropped screws and opens clamshell packaging, both real gifts. At the party, every spoon on the buffet table starts drifting toward one guest’s wrist.
8. The Homer, Goldfinger (1964)
Q issued two homing devices: a small one for the heel of Bond’s shoe and a bigger, magnetic one. Bond slipped the big one into the trunk of Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce and followed the blip on his dashboard all the way to Switzerland. (Its adventures in Kentucky belong to another post.) Here’s the play: hide one inside your own gift and you’ll know exactly who stole it, and where it went next, for the rest of the night. Low chaos. Deep, quiet satisfaction.
7. The EMP Watch, No Time to Die (2021)
Q fitted this watch with an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out nearby electronics, and warned Bond he hadn’t had a chance to test it properly. Its big field test was on Primo’s bionic eye, and that scene stays off the party list. At the party, stand next to the television, press, and the yule log goes dark mid-crackle. Useful at home? Not in any way you’d admit to. It lost the tiebreaker to number 6, which got more use in its film.
6 to 4: The Swap Gets Personal
6. The TV Watch, Octopussy (1983)
Bond spotted it in Q’s lab in India, where Q introduced it as the latest liquid crystal TV. Bond’s picture-quality test involved zooming in on something in the lab that was not lab equipment. In the finale it earned its place, carrying live pictures from the cameras on Q’s hot-air balloon during the raid on Kamal’s palace. Seiko had already been selling a real TV watch since 1982, so Q was doing some shopping along with the inventing. Today a screen on your wrist is how somebody at the table watches the game during dinner, which is why it gets stolen twice.
5. Snooper, A View to a Kill (1985)
Strictly speaking, Snooper isn’t handheld. It walks. But this remote-controlled camera robot, which looks a bit like a small dog, fits in a big box and gets a gasp the second the lid comes off, so we waved it through. In the last scene, Q sends it into Stacey’s house through the cat door to look for Bond, who everyone thinks is dead. It finds him in the shower with Stacey, and Bond covers the lens. At home it’s a pet camera that is also the pet. At the party, someone will steer it into the bathroom within ten minutes, which is exactly what Q did.
4. The Glass-Shattering Ring, Die Another Day (2002)
Q demonstrated it on a pane of bulletproof glass: Bond’s own pistol could not break it, then one twist of the ring and the pane fell apart. Bond put it to use at Graves’s ice palace, shattering the glass floor under himself when Frost had him cornered. Around the house it fixes nothing and breaks plenty. Party chaos is enormous, and aimed squarely at the host’s wine glasses. It climbs this high for one reason: nobody wants anyone else holding it.
3 to 1: Locked After Three Steals
If your group plays with a three-steal limit, these are the gifts that hit it.
3. The Key Ring, The Living Daylights (1987)
It holds your keys, which is the least interesting thing it does. It also hides a skeleton key lock pick, releases stun gas when someone whistles a few bars of “Rule Britannia,” and explodes on a wolf whistle. Bond used it to get out of a Soviet cell in Afghanistan, and again to settle his final showdown with Whitaker. At home, getting locked out stops being a problem. At the party, the danger is one cheerful guest whistling along to the holiday playlist. Everyone wants it. Everyone also wants to know which tune does what before they take it home.
2. The X-Ray Glasses, The World Is Not Enough (1999)
A pair of blue-tinted glasses that see through things. At Zukovsky’s casino, Bond used them to spot which guests were carrying hidden weapons, and got a look at a few things besides weapons. Now picture them at a white elephant party. You’d see what’s inside every wrapped box before choosing. (Wrapped presents only, please. Q Branch gets enough complaints.) Whoever is wearing them is winning the game, and the whole room knows it.
1. The Phone, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Q packed a lot into one phone: a fingerprint scanner, a lock pick in the antenna, a stun charge, and a touch pad that drove Bond’s specially equipped car by remote. In Hamburg, Bond used the scanner to open a safe at Carver’s newspaper plant, then steered the car from the back seat through a parking garage while henchmen shot at it. Here’s the confession: the remote works with Q’s car, not yours, so this ranking assumes the car comes in the box too. That’s a big box. With it parked in the driveway, whoever holds the phone is giving guests rides with nobody behind the wheel. It gets stolen until the rules won’t allow it anymore.
Bonus: The Gift That Opens You Back
The Attache Case, From Russia with Love (1963)
This one breaks our own rule. It’s less a gadget than a field kit, and the rifle and throwing knife Q packed inside exist for exactly the job we banned. We let it in anyway, since no gift on this list cares more about how you unwrap it. Open the case the right way and you get fifty gold sovereigns. Open it the wrong way and a tear-gas cartridge goes off in your face, as Grant discovered in a scene we’ve already covered. The sovereigns make it the most tempting box in the room. The tear gas makes it the box nobody wants to open first.
The Gift Exchange Report
The pattern holds across the list. Gadgets built for one narrow job, like breathing underwater or beating a slot machine, go home quietly with whoever opened them. The ones that change how the party itself is played get stolen until the rules step in. The phone wins, with the car we admitted to slipping into the box.