James Bond may be a suave MI6 secret agent with access to a bevy of cool gadgets, and a license to kill, but he's not invulnerable. For every good secret agent, there's a bountiful selection of bad guys just waiting to take him out. Bond has squared off against some of the deadliest villains in the world, and not all of them were in his favor.
There are many moments in 007's career when he was clearly outmatched in a fight and would have bit the big one had it not been for a stroke of last-minute luck. Here are ten of them which prove just how close James Bond came to having his own ticket punched as he fought to save the world from yet another disaster.
Laser Focused (Die Another Day)
Sometimes, Bond would roll up on an enemy much larger and more powerful than himself, which necessitated some quick thinking. Nevertheless, there are plenty of scrapes that he shouldn't have been able to make it out of, were it not for some help. In this film, the assistance came from Jinx, played by the talented Halle Berry.
While fighting a particularly burly security agent, Bond was grabbed by the throat while his foe pulled a sharp pin out of his hair and prepared to stab him with it. Jinx activated a high-powered laser that fired a beam straight through the back of his head and through his mouth, saving 007 from a rather painful death.
Good Knife (Tomorrow Never Dies)
Stamper was one particularly cold-hearted Bond villain that was far more brutish than his appearance would suggest. Trained in the art of Chakra torture, and possessing enough physical strength to stun an ox, Stamper proved to be more than a match for Bond near the end of the film.
Despite repeated injuries (including a knife wound to the chest), Stamper was able to toss Bond over the edge of a missile harness and hold him there. The objective was for them both to die when the missile was launched, but Bond was able to pull the embedded knife out of Stamper's chest and use it to cut his tactical vest away, allowing him to drop safely into the water, just in the nick of time.
Hinx Gets Jinxed (Spectre)
Dave Bautista made an appearance in the last 007 film released in 2015, and it was a memorable one. He played the cruel hit man Hinx, known for his imposing size and brutal methods of punishment. When he went up against Bond on a train, it was nowhere near an even match.
Hinx beat the tar out of Bond before preparing to throw him out of the train at high speed. Only some timely intervention by Madeleine gave him a chance to tie a rope around Hinx's neck, which was connected to some heavy transport kegs. Hinx was yanked out of the train, giving Bond another day among the living.
Nuclear Meltdown (The World Is Not Enough)
Victor Zokas proved to be a much different kind of villain than the one Bond was used to. First, he was extremely knowledgeable in hand to hand combat, but his real trump card was his inability to feel pain; a side effect of a botched MI6 assassination. Zokas sought to overload a nuclear reactor using a plutonium rod, which would have obliterated an entire city.
The fight with Bond was a painful one, with Zokas beating him down long enough to insert the plutonium rod into the reactor, which began a meltdown. Bond was able to avert it by activating the reactor's purging system, which spit the rod out, and straight into Zokas's chest, impaling him on it.
The Prosthetic Sabotage (Live And Let Die)
After Bond takes out principal antagonist Mr. Big in this popular 007 film, the fighting should be over. However, on a train trip home, Bond is attacked by Tee Hee, a bad guy out for revenge for the death of his employer. Bond is outmatched in a fight with this particular foe, who just so happens to have a prosthetic pincer arm that he uses in his kills.
Bond is held up against the window of the train with Tee Hee's arm on his throat, and it seems as if the fight is over. That is until Bond manages to grab a pair of cuticle cutters from a nearby luggage case and snip the wires on his prosthetic arm. This nullifies his main advantage, allowing Bond to throw him straight out of the train window.
Get The Point (Thunderball)
Bond gets into a major scrap with SPECTRE number two villain Largo and his men at the end of Thunderball. It all starts when he boards the Disco Volante, a fast ship trying to make a getaway from the U.S. Navy. When part of the ship breaks away and turns into a hydrofoil, its speed increases dramatically.
To stop the ship, Bond attacks Largo and his men before the latter gets the upper hand. It would surely have meant curtains for Bond, were it not for the timely intervention of the lovely Domino, who shoots him in the back with a harpoon gun.
Ejection Rejection (Tomorrow Never Dies)
The opening act of this classic 007 film saw Bond wiping out a major black market weapons sale before making a daring Top Gun-style escape in a fighter jet. Believing he was in the free and clear, Bond was suddenly attacked by a bad guy sitting in the plane's co-pilot seat, who tried to strangle him with a garrote.
If that weren't bad enough, another plane was hot on his tail, trying to shoot him out of the sky. To kill two proverbial birds with one stone, Bond stayed conscious long enough to hit the Eject switch, sending his co-pilot straight through the underside of the enemy plane above him. If not for that little piece of technology, Bond would definitely have died.
Urine For A Shock (Never Say Never Again)
An aged James Bond was in for quite a surprise when he was set upon by a hulking strongman assassin named Lippe in the opening act of Never Say Never Again. The fight began in the gym of a health clinic before spilling out into a number of different rooms, from the kitchen to a woman's dormitory.
Eventually, they fought their way inside of a chem lab where Lippe hurled Bond into a shelving unit full of chemicals. Bond reached for the beaker and threw the contents in Lippe's face, which was enough to fend him off. Bond then learned that he'd thrown his own urine sample at Lippe, which caused him to fall into a bunch of glass beakers, impaling himself in multiple spots through the back.
Lights Out (The Spy Who Loved Me)
Of all the Bond villains, Jaws is undoubtedly one of the most iconic. Played by the hulking Richard Kiel, this monstrous mercenary-for-hire starred in several 007 films starring Roger Moore. He was most famous for his iconic metal teeth that could bite through almost anything; hence the name.
Jaws attacked Bond on a train in this film and easily overpowered him. He had Bond by the throat and was leaning in to take a killing bite out of him before Bond managed to grab a nearby lamp and touch the socket to his teeth. It was enough to give Jaws an incredible shock, and Bond enough time to kick him face-first out of the train window. It wouldn't be the last time the two crossed paths, however.
Battle Of The Double-Oh's (GoldenEye)
Bond was up against a similarly skilled opponent in ex-MI6 agent 006, who'd since gone rogue and commandeered the top-secret GoldenEye satellite. Their battle inside a communications dish led all the way up to the top of the spire where they battled it out on a tiny ledge.
It seemed Alec Trevelyan had the upper hand when he managed to get on top of Bond and start squeezing the life out of him. He was distracted by the appearance of Natalya Simonova holding Trevelyan's helicopter pilot up with a gun, and Bond took advantage to turn the tide before letting him fall to his death.