Every Bond Girl Ranked - Worst To Best

Who could melt the cold heart of the blunt, vicious instrument that was a newly minted double-oh agent like Vesper?

From their first meeting and sizing up of one another, physically and psychologically, it was clear that Bond had met a formidable figure in his first mission, whether she’d ultimately turn out a friend or foe.

Gone were the days of the female ally who’d immediately swoon into the arms of the roguish agent, instead requiring mutual trust and respect to be earned on a delicate, and dangerous stage with little room for error. Indeed, they go through the proverbial wringer together as they navigate the slippery Le Chiffre’s scheme and General Obanno’s brutal intervention.

The tandem experiences anguish, fear, tension, the coldness of defeat, and the exhilaration of victory. They face death, danger, the threat of pain, of loss, together. Their lives are saved and irrevocably changed by one another, and it very much feels like the events of an epic have passed before the two are living it up in a Venice hotel, blissfully in love.

Of course, that’s what makes her ultimate betrayal all the more painful and influential in shaping Bond’s view on emotional attachment from that point onwards. The job may be done, the bitch may be dead, but Vesper Lynd will live long in the memory as one of the most complex and significant Bond Girls of all.

Best moment: When tactically instructed by Bond to look as beautiful as possible on the casino floor so as to distract the other players, Vesper gives as good as she gets. 007 is stunned to discover a fully tailored dinner jacket waiting for him in the room, as Vesper casually comments that she needs him looking like he belongs at that elite table. Touché.

Worst moment: Hard not to elect her glowing endorsement of Bond’s watch upon their introduction. “Rolex?” “Omega.” “Beautiful.” Cringe. If she were in Skyfall she might have said “Heineken eh? Hell of a beer.”