Every Bond Girl Ranked - Worst To Best

Red-headed Russian Natalya Simonova ends up in a high position in the rankings by virtue of her fiery temperament and vital role of importance in the mission.

The story follows Natalya for an extended period of time as she’s established as the lone survivor of Ourumov and Onatopp’s murderous purge of a Serbian satellite control centre, bringing attention to her relative independence and intellect. It’s also her key technological skills that enable 007 to locate ultimate villain Alec Trevelyan’s hidden lair, as well as foil the fallen agent’s dastardly scheme.

She gets plenty of moments to shine, from booting 007 in the shins after he rescues her from a particularly convoluted helicopter missile death trap to deriding both Bond and Russian Defence Minister Mishkin’s childish squabbling as akin to “boys with toys”.

In a particularly self-aware Bond adventure that takes the series into the modern era with some introspective examinations of 007’s role in the world, Natalya provides a mouthpiece to attack the idea of Bond as a shining knight. Her seething questions as to whether Bond’s killing and skilful combat is supposed to be heroic or impressive mark a surprisingly progressive moment for the franchise in 1995… even if she succumbs to 007’s magical lips mere seconds later.

Best moment: Natalya provides some much needed catharsis on the viewer’s part by walloping loathsome pest Boris Grishenko right in the kisser.

Worst moment: In terms of logic, however, it seems she’s no match for Boris, as she completely fails to solve his simple “chair” riddle. In contrast, 007 figures it out in less than a second.