Every Bond Girl Ranked - Worst To Best

A character that begins as a many-tentacled enigma soon has her layers peeled back to reveal a Bond girl that, in the end, isn’t too dissimilar from any that came before. Octopussy’s most famous attribute remains her name, outrageous even by Bond girl standards and difficult to say with a straight face.

A notable and interesting backstory teases the character as unique; Octopussy’s fugitive father killed himself after being tracked down by 007, who’d nonetheless given him a chance to settle his affairs. Octopussy considers this sufficiently honourable to make her susceptible to some good old-fashioned bedroom shenanigans with James Bond.

And yet, there’s the rub; for all the buildup establishing Octopussy as an infamous, shadowy jewel smuggler feared even by local Indian ruffians, it doesn’t take long before she’s another damsel in distress and slave to 007’s esteemed magic pistol.

Octopussy initially seems an updated version of Pussy Galore, down to her name, her partnership with the villain, and her literal circus. Yet it doesn’t even take a forceful rumble in the hay to reveal that beneath her mysterious exterior lies a character we’ve really seen so many times before.

Best moment: Her introduction as an ominous and tantalising presence whose symbol is tattooed on lithe Swedish babes, and a figure that even appears to have Kamal Khan’s exceedingly rich and powerful Afghan villain under her thumb.

Worst moment: Seen simpering and swooning over an apparently incapacitated Bond at film’s end, sighing that she wishes he had his strength back. Lo and behold, Bond brushes off his casts and takes her in his strong, gallant arms as she coos “oh, James!” The film’s named after you, love, have some dignity.