The Best James Bond Deaths Ever, from Goldfinger to Baron Samedi

Bond is back. “Skyfall”, the new film in the epic series, stars Daniel Craig as James Bond and Javier Bardem as the elusive Bond villain.

The film took in $87.8 million its first week, a new Bond record. The series also just turned 50, and Digital Dying thought it would be a good time to look back through the annals of Bond and come up with a list of the Best Bond Deaths. From cyanide being dripped down a string to being ejected into space, here is what we found..

Hugo Drax, “Moonraker” (1979) – A space shuttle on its way to England is hijacked in mid-air and the entire crew of the 747 that was carrying it is killed. Bond visits Drax Industries, the company that built the shuttle, where he comes across the company’s nefarious leader, Hugo Drax. Several of his thugs attempt to kill Bond, including the awkward giant Jaws, who has a mouthful of metal teeth and a head the size of a television. Bond escapes then crisscrosses the globe while trying to uncover Drax’s master plan. He eventually finds himself aboard the stolen shuttle itself and headed into space. Here he learns what Drax is up to: kill everyone on earth with nerve gas then reestablish his own version of a perfect race on the planet. But not so fast. Bond and Jaws make amends when he tells the giant his freakish form has no part in Drax’s genocidal plan. Bond then corners Drax but the villain grabs a gun off a dead soldier and seems to have Bond beaten, only 007 uses his nifty wrist activated gun and ejects the evil Drax into space.

Other Great Reads: How to send your cremated remains into space

Jill Masterson, “Goldfinger” (1964) – The evil villain here is a crooked jeweler named Goldfinger. While his death is exciting—he foolishly fires his gun at Bond in his private jet then gets sucked out the broken window—it’s not nearly as stunning as that of his mistress, a curvy blonde named Jill Masterson. We meet her early in the film at a Miami casino, she is helping Goldfinger cheat at cards by spying on his opponents’ hand through a pair of binoculars. Bond distracts Jill and brings her back to his hotel room where they spend the evening together. But when he goes to retrieve another bottle of champagne, a well-muscled Korean in a bowler hat named Oddjob whacks him on the head from behind, knocking him unconscious. Upon waking Bond finds his new love has been covered head to toe in gold paint, and has died from skin suffocation.

Other Great Reads: Dealing with grief after losing a loved one

Aki, “You Only Live Twice” (1967) – It’s another space-themed Bond flick, a spacecraft mysteriously disappears in mid-orbit and lands in the Sea of Japan. Bond heads to Tokyo to investigate, where he meets Aki, assistant to the Japanese secret service operative Tiger Tanaka. Together they race around the country trying to find out who hijacked the spacecraft. Aki saves Bond’s life several times but in the end her allegiance to him leads to her downfall. They are married in a traditional Japanese ceremony. During the night an assassin breaks into their nuptial home and dangles a piece of string over Bond’s face then runs a drop of cyanide down it. Just before the lethal drop reaches Bond’s mouth he rolls over in his sleep, the poison hits Aki’s lips instead. Bond wakes just in time for her to die in his arms.

Baron Samedi, “Live and Let Die” (1973) – Samedi is voodoo henchman number one for Dr. Kananga, the evil dictator of the small Caribbean island of San Monique. Kananga is using the island’s lush poppy fields to produce massive amounts of heroin, which he then plans to distribute to the world free of charge, increasing the number of addicts and driving all the other cartels out of business. This would give Kananga a virtual monopoly of the heroin market, hahaha. A good plan except Bond gets cozy with one of Kananga’s ladies, a vixen named Solitaire who leads Bond into the dictator’s inner realm. Bond busts up a Kananga drug lab after narrowly avoiding death by alligator and later uses his nifty magnet watch to narrowly escape death by shark. The evil Samedi is disposed of in a chest full of poisonous snakes and Kananga is pumped full of gas and exploded. But the film’s end holds a shocking secret: on the back of the train in which Bond and Solitaire are traveling is Samedi, in a frightening voodoo outfit and laughing maniacally.