Countdown! The 10 best Bond girls

Countdown! The 10 best Bond girls

Before Casino Royale hit theaters and reinvented the James Bond franchise, we posted one of our most popular features ever: Our countdown of the 10 best Bond girls ever. At the time, we weren’t sure where — or even if — Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd would fit on the list. But now that the movie’s a favorite, we figured we’d take another look at the rankings — with help from our readers, of course. So: Take a look at the new top 10, with tweaks courtesy of PopWatchers (buh-bye, Halle Berry)!

10. Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet)

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

10 best Bond girls: Melina Havelock

As the quintessential Bond girl-with-a-vengeance, she never smiles or says much as she gets even for the murder of her parents with a little crossbow and a helluva lot of determination. Still, with legs like those (among the most iconic images in all of 007-dom), who needs a personality?

9. Tiffany Case (Jill St. John)

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

10 best Bond girls: Tiffany Case

She was devious and devilish, but that only made Bond — and, well, men everywhere — want her more. (Her terrifically corny-comely moniker didn’t hurt, either.) But beyond all that, seeing this voluptuous lady running around a burning oil rig in a technicolor bikini was all it took to make Sean Connery’s dreariest outing as 007 eminently watchable.

8. Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya)

From Russia With Love (1963)

10 best Bond girls: Rosa Klebb

Unsexy, you say? Not a real Bond girl? We beg to differ. Dr. Freud would have had a field day with this Russian agent’s manic obsession with, er, sticking her knife (fabulously concealed in a tight leather shoe) into our hero. The first dominatrix Bond girl (and, amazingly, not the last), she never doffed her duds, but she was as memorable as they get.

7. Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

10 best Bond girls: Wai Lin

She wasn’t the first woman of color to match wits with 007 (although, woefully, there haven’t been many). But in 1997 she became the first one you could take seriously. Hong Kong action veteran Yeoh’s skilled and savvy Chinese agent was the first babe that could be called superhot on a truly global scale.

6. Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen)

GoldenEye (1995)

10 best Bond girls: Xenia Onatopp

Those eyes! Those thighs! And with a name like that, guys knew they were going to get what they’d secretly longed for: a woman who really does use sex as a weapon — and can’t get enough of it. Onatopp (stop snickering!) is said to be the first Bond girl seen having an orgasm, and she returned 007’s leading ladies to smooth sailing after years in the doldrums.

5. Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

10 best Bond girls: Anya Amasova

Bach may have been an American girl, but in the mid-1970s no more exotic a woman appeared on screen than her KGB spook (codename, ahem, Agent XXX). Equally at home fighting in the Sahara as rolling in the sheets, she was the Bond-girl response to women’s liberation, in every respect 007’s first modern equal.

4. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green)

Casino Royale (2006)

10 best Bond girls: Vesper Lynd

In last year’s re-energizing of the series, she fit the bill perfectly, embodying all the traits that characterize 007’s most memorable minxes — the smarts of Pussy Galore, the drive of Melina Havelock, the sobriety of Anya Amasova, and the, ahem, jewels of Tiffany Case. An instant classic.

3. Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg)

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

10 best Bond girls: Tracy di Vicenzo

As it happened, Rigg replaced fellow Bond girl Honor Blackman on TV’s The Avengers, where her Emma Peel became renowned as the toughest of dames. Opposite one-time 007 George Lazenby, however, she gave the series’ most heartfelt and least comic performance as a lovelorn Mafia heiress, the only woman you could imagine the superspy settling down with.

2. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman)

Goldfinger (1964)

10 best Bond girls: Pussy Galore

Really, her name alone would have been enough to rank her among Bond’s best loves. But Brit Blackman rounded off Pussy’s cardboard edges, introducing fans to the series’ first real woman — a gorgeous dame who can fly a plane and kick butt (check out her rumble in the hay with 007) as well as coo and woo.

1. Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress)

Dr. No (1962)

10 best Bond girls: Honey Ryder

The first truly was the best. The Swiss native’s voice may have been completely dubbed over in postproduction, but, well, the goods were all hers. Her sultry walk out of the waves set the tone for every sexy-strong Bond girl who followed and led a generation of men to dream about lying down ”underneath the mango tree.”