Top 10 Times James Bond Really Should Have Died

This film is home to some brilliantly outrageous stunts. There is a certain bike riding, skydiving, plane catching sequence however that just goes a little too far. After Bond decides he will do whatever it takes to catch a plane that is plummeting off a cliff, he decides to hurl himself and a motorbike off a cliff and skydive his way down to it. Not only is it remarkable that Bond made it to the plane in time, but somehow he manages the impossible and pulls up conveniently just before crashing into the mountains. You really are a sorcerer Mr. Bond.

It’s usually Bond himself that manages to worm his way out of sticky situations. But in “From Russia with Love”, a certain someone swoops in to save the day - and surprisingly, it’s a bad guy, SPECTRE assassin Donald “Red” Grant. Keeping Bond alive just long enough to allow him to retrieve a piece of intelligence for him, Red hangs in the wings and protects Bond. In one particular scenario, Red takes out a guy with a knife who is about to stab 007 in the back. Of course our secret agent just gets on with it. But could you imagine - Bond unromantically taken out by some anonymous dude with a knife. What a waste.

There are quite a few scientific laws tested in “Goldfinger”, electrocution being one of them. But what caught our attention was when Bond is fighting for survival on a plane and suddenly a window is smashed and the cabin pressure drops. The bottom line here, bad guy Auric Goldfinger gets sucked out of a window whereas Bond, seemingly with reaction times as quick as a bullet, merely holds on and rides out the storm. Whether or not the Bond series has its science right here isn't the topic of discussion, but it’s pretty clear that a force powerful enough to hurl chubby Goldfinger through the air like a frisbee should’ve took Bond with it as well.

Ah yes, this scene. Something cemented in Bond folklore, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. Essentially Bond is falling into the sea, giant waves in pursuit, and equipped only with the wreckage of his vehicle. What does he do? Of course he whips up a surfboard-like contraption and windsurfs his way to safety. Take your pick for the reasons Bond should have been brown bread here. Tangled parachute, hitting an iceberg, what about drowning because he’s surfing on a slab of bloody metal. And let’s not start with the CGI. Oh the CGI.

In this film’s final showdown, Bond takes on a hotel of bad guys in order to kill villain Greene and save Camille - and as a result, sets the place alight, literally. Unfortunately, Bond eventually finds himself cornered, surrounded by flames and explosions, and kind of of accepts his fate. But of course, that’s not how it ends. After somehow surviving copious amounts of smoke in the air and heat from the flames, Bond shoots a cannister on the wall, which ignites yet another explosion, and which allows him to climb out unharmed - taking the expression ‘fighting fire with fire’ to a whole new level.

We’ve seen Bond and his vehicles take some pretty brutal hits over the years, but nothing quite tops the crash from Casino Royale. Rushing off to find and rescue Vesper, Bond cuts up the road like a bat out of hell, desperately trying to catch up with those that took her. To his surprise, she turns up in the middle of the road, forcing Bond to erratically swerve and somersault his car several times. It really does keep going, and going. After the wreckage comes to a halt, Bond slouches forward unconscious, but lives to fight another day. Seat belts people - amazing things.

A dramatic chase scene with on-road boat riding and underwater tie-fixing sets the tone for this feat of survival. After finally catching up with a fleeing assailant, Bond finds himself hanging from a hot air balloon, rising higher and higher into the sky. An impromptu explosion forces him to let go and plummet a few hundred feet onto London’s Millennium Dome. For the record, the Millennium Dome is made of solid fibreglass, and Bond falls straight onto it, back first. Even a textbook parachute fall wouldn't do you much good here. You’d crumble like soft bread.

In what is undeniably one of the saddest moments in the entire Bond franchise, this scene see’s the secret agent’s recently-married wife Tracy gunned down by Blofeld and his goon Irma Bunt. Hit by a stray bullet, Tracy dies instantly while sat in the passenger seat as James removes the flowers from the outside of the wedding car. The astonishing thing here is that James somehow avoids being hit, even when stood outside the car, in clear view of his assassin and when faced with a barrage of bullets. Also, if they so wished, Blofeld and co. could have just stopped and finished the job, but for cinematic reasons, they didn’t.

For this entry, 007 wasn't such a successful bullet dodger. As well as being battered and bruised from a fight atop a moving train, James also takes a uranium bullet to the chest - and goes flying from a bridge after getting hit by a rifle bullet. Potential poisoning from Uranium, a broken back and drowning should have put Bond out of action indefinitely. But, as everyone loves a comeback story, James nurses himself back to health with some heavy drinking. Oh, not to mention the fact that he removes the bullet shrapnel from his shoulder, with a knife, himself. Nobody does it better.

Possibly the most appropriate title for a Bond film ever, “You Only Live Twice” sees our hero folded into a stowaway bed and riddled with machine gun bullets in the opening sequence. Now, in a situation like this, you’d expect Bond to have slipped out just before being shot. But shortly afterwards, we see him bloodied and motionless. Even the police confirm that he is dead. Of course, Bond survives the encounter and we are lead to believe he faked his death, but as an audience, there’s no doubt that we feel cheated and that the secret agent should have been rolled in the bedsheet and laid to rest there and then.