Every Main James Bond Villain Ranked Worst To Best

14. Karl Stromberg (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977)

Stromberg’s scheme to destroy East and West with nuclear bombs and repopulate humanity under the sea is bombastic to the extreme, taking Blofeld’s plan from You Only Live Twice and ramping everything about it off the scales of megalomania. For this reason, Stromberg has to rank reasonably high.

It’s only intangible matters that limit his quality as a Bond villain: lacking presence and charisma, Stromberg comes off as a grumpy old fart. Having webbed hands and being really, really fond of the ocean are iffy character traits at best. Stromberg also had the misfortunate of hiring perhaps the most famous (and durable) henchman in Bond history, steel-toothed giant Jaws, a character that viewers are far more interested in seeing than himself.

Best Moment: After paying two scientists a hefty sum of money, Stromberg has their helicopter rigged to explode, their payment promptly cancelled. The dishonest rogue can’t even pay a couple of lab coats for a job well done. Isn’t genocide enough?! “The funeral was at sea," Stromberg dryly quips. Delicious villainy.

Worst Moment: For all of his grandiose ambition, Stromberg goes out not in a blaze of glory but as an old man shot in the balls by an utterly contemptuous Bond. And then again, and again. Though he does drink Dom Pérignon ’52, so he can’t be all bad.