The most important villains in the James Bond franchise are the megalomaniacs who want to take over the world, like the gold hoarder who wants to destroy Fort Knox to increase his own wealth in Goldfinger or the media mogul who wants to start World War III for the exclusive news coverage in Tomorrow Never Dies.
But those megalomaniacs would be unable to carry out their diabolical plans without the help of their loyal henchmen. From Jaws with his steel teeth to Oddjob with his razor-brimmed bowler hat, 007 has had to contend with some intimidating side villains before getting to the main one.
Mr. Hinx (Spectre)
One of the saving graces of Daniel Craig’s weakest Bond film, Spectre, was Dave Bautista’s brutal turn as Blofeld’s henchman, Mr. Hinx. The character gets an unforgettable introduction as he jams his thumbs through a man’s eyes.
Hinx later returns toward the end of the second act to fight Bond on a train. This relentless fight scene is a throwback to the iconic Orient Express brawl in From Russia with Love.
Zao (Die Another Day)
The side villain in Die Another Day is more of a threat than the main villain, Gustav Graves, the DNA-altering maniac who hires him. Zao is played by Rick Yune, who brings a truly sinister quality to his performance.
Noted for his diamond-encrusted face, Zao is a freelance terrorist whose destructive acts of terror are simply jobs that he was hired to do for a quick buck.
May Day (A View To A Kill)
Christopher Walken’s performance as the villainous industrialist Max Zorin in A View to a Kill was criticized for being too hammy or over-the-top. But Grace Jones was praised for her turn as Zorin’s bodyguard and lover, May Day.
Throughout the movie, she keeps killing 007’s friends and allies, like French private detective Achille Aubergine and MI6 agent/racehorse trainer Sir Godfrey Tibbett.
Irma Bunt (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)
George Lazenby’s one and only film in the role of Bond, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, is praised as one of the series’ finest entries for its grounded, dramatic tone and its surprisingly emotional turns.
The Bond formula dictates that the movie ends with a crass double entendre and a sex scene, but On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ends with 007 cradling the corpse of his wife after she’s gunned down by Blofeld’s henchwoman Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) in a drive-by shooting.
Tee Hee (Live And Let Die)
Dr. Kananga’s top henchman in Live and Let Die, Roger Moore’s first Bond movie, is Tee Hee Johnson. Played by Julius W. Harris, Tee Hee has a prosthetic arm with a pincer attached to it (a little like the machete-armed Razor Fist from Marvel’s Shang-Chi).
After Bond has defeated Kananga, Tee Hee attacks him on a train in the final scene. The henchman makes short work of Bond’s gun barrel with his metal claw.
Dario (License To Kill)
Timothy Dalton’s second and ultimately last Bond film, License to Kill, is a gritty revenge thriller with personal stakes. Bond pursues drug lord Franz Sanchez to avenge Felix Leiter. The movie’s main henchman, Dario, played by Benicio del Toro, is the personal bodyguard of a ruthless drug kingpin.
Dario is so brutal that a crime boss who fed a top-ranking CIA agent to a shark hired him for protection. Bond kills Dario by feeding him into an industrial-sized cocaine grinder in the finale.
Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye)
Played brilliantly by Famke Janssen alongside Pierce Brosnan in his 007 debut, Xenia Onatopp is the literal femme fatale of GoldenEye. In a delightfully on-the-nose take on the familiar noir trope, Onatopp lures men to bed so she can kill them.
Unlike many iconic Bond movie henchmen, Onatopp doesn’t even need a weapon to kill her targets. She just crushes men to death with her thighs during sex.
Oddjob (Goldfinger)
Played by Olympic weightlifter Harold Sakata, Oddjob is the personal henchman of Auric Goldfinger who wears a bowler hat with a razor blade in the brim.
When he frisbees the hat at unsuspecting targets, it decapitates them. Oddjob demonstrates the awesome power of his deadly bowler hat by lopping the head off of a statue.
Red Grant (From Russia With Love)
More than a decade before delivering the monologue of a lifetime in Jaws, Robert Shaw played the brutal Soviet henchman Red Grant opposite Sean Connery’s 007 in From Russia with Love. Grant isn’t just a generic threat; he’s been specifically trained to assassinate Bond.
Grant ultimately confronts Bond on the Orient Express and shows off his brute force in what is now regarded as one of the most iconic fight scenes from the entire series. Viewers genuinely fear for Bond’s life, despite his plot armor.
Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me / Moonraker)
After being introduced in The Spy Who Loved Me, Richard Kiel’s Jaws became so popular among fans that he achieved a rare feat for Bond movie henchmen: he was invited back for the next adventure. Jaws worked for Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me and Hugo Drax in Moonraker.
He’s the ultimate Bond henchman: a hulking enforcer with teeth made of steel, capable of biting through a cable-car cable. When Jaws is lowered into a tank with a bloodthirsty shark, the shark is the one that needs to be scared.