James Bond Kills the Most People in One of the Best 007 Movies Actorsvaultpro

Celebrating its 30th anniversary on November 17, 2025, GoldenEye not only marks Pierce Brosnan‘s first time playing the charming super spy 007, but it also features James Bond’s highest kill count by a country mile. While some Bond fans have taken offense at the unremitting carnage and exorbitant body count, others appreciate how the movie embraces the super-spy’s combat prowess and expert gunplay, which were lacking in previous iterations.

Regardless of where one stands on the high death toll inflicted by the dashing 007, it’s no surprise that the success of GoldenEye led to three more Brosnan-led Bond films and one more directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale with Daniel Craig). It’s also impossible to diminish GoldenEye‘s lasting legacy after inspiring the Nintendo 64’s landmark first-person shooter GoldenEye 007. With the film turning 30, now’s the time to witness the deadliest Bond movie on record.

What Is ‘GoldenEye’ About?

MGM

The first James Bond film made after the Soviet Union dissolved, Martin Campbell’s GoldenEye, focuses on the post-Cold War tensions between the Soviets and the United States. The film begins with MI6 Agent James Bond (Brosnan) sneaking into and destroying a secret chemical weapons lab in Russia. Nine years later, an organized crime outfit known as Janus has seized control of “GoldenEye,” a nuclear satellite weapon capable of blasting Earth with a destructive electromagnetic pulse.

When GoldenEye’s passcodes are stolen, Bond is sent to Russia to retrieve them and prevent the weapon from being detonated. As Bond confronts Janus, he encounters the syndicate’s ruthless assassin, Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). Worse yet, Bond learns that his long-time friend and fellow MI6 colleague, Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), has faked his death and orchestrated a plot to use GoldenEye to destroy Earth and send civilization back to the dark ages.

Beyond Brosnan’s central casting, GoldenEye marked several changes for the popular Bond franchise. For instance, Dame Judi Dench was cast as M, marking the first time that a woman portrayed the MI6 Director. The character of Miss Moneypenny was also recast, with Samantha Bond replacing Caroline Bliss. GoldenEye also marked the first Bond film to utilize CGI, which was featured in the movie’s large-scale helicopter explosions and nuclear detonations.

Yet, despite the enlarged canvas that allowed for massive CG devastation, James Bond uses his license to kill to become more deadly and militant than ever before in GoldenEye, thanks to his expert gunwork and close-quarters combat.

How Many People Does James Bond Kill in ‘GoldenEye’?

To end the suspense: James Bond takes 47 lives in GoldenEye — by far a franchise record. 23 people are killed at the end when Bond detonates a pen bomb inside Janus’ satellite control center in Cuba, including 12 technicians and 11 Russian soldiers. GoldenEye marks the first time Bond uses a pen bomb, which happens to be a small C4 grenade hidden inside the writing tool.

For those offended by Bond’s high body count in the finale, it’s worth noting that Russian hacker Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) activated the pen bomb, not 007. Only once Bond realized the bomb was armed did he toss it into a fuel stack, resulting in 23 Russian deaths.

As for the remaining 24 deaths perpetrated by Bond, seven of them occur in his ultimate showdown with Trevelyan. Bond dispatches six soldiers with his trusty Walther PPK handgun before killing Trevelyan by dropping him into a concrete pit following hand-to-hand combat.

Of the 17 outstanding deaths, Bond also kills a helicopter pilot, a soldier during a motorcycle chase, and multiple guards inside and outside the Janus compound with an AKS-74U assault rifle. Bond also sports an FN P90 submachine gun to dispatch multiple Russian villains and a Beretta 418 early in the film. Bond even drives a Russian military tank through St. Petersburg, destroying everything in his path.

In sum, 87 people die in GoldenEye, with Bond responsible for 47 (54%). As such, Brosnan has been labeled as the deadliest James Bond in franchise history, responsible for 135 deaths over four films. That averages 33.75 kills per movie, more than double that of the next-closest candidate, Daniel Craig, who averages 16.6 kills per movie. Rounding out the top five most lethal Bonds are Roger Moore (12.8 kills per movie), Timothy Dalton (11.5 kills per movie), and the inimitable Sean Connery (10.2 kills per movie).

Film	Release Year	Actor	Kills
GoldenEye	1995	Pierce Brosnan	47
Tomorrow Never Dies	1997	Pierce Brosnan	30
The World Is Not Enough	1999	Pierce Brosnan	27
Die Another Day	2002	Pierce Brosnan	31

Yet, for all the fuss over Bond’s excessive death toll, without tallying 47 bodies in GoldenEye, it’s entirely possible that the outstanding GoldenEye 007 video game would not have become such a cultural phenomenon in the late ’90s.

How ‘GoldenEye’ Inspired One of the Best First-Person Shooters

For as polarizing as Bond’s kill count in GoldenEye may be, it’s impossible to divorce the movie’s unrelenting bloodshed from the iconic video game it inspired. Although first-person shooters like Quake and Doom deserve credit for popularizing the gaming genre in the 1990s, GoldenEye 007‘s split-screen mechanics and narrative fidelity to the movie took immersive FPS gameplay to a whole new level.

In the landmark game, players take the role of James Bond and must complete several missions relating to GoldenEye’s Russian satellite plot involving Xenia and Trevelyan. Whether skulking through various bunkers, labs, or weapons facilities, players are tasked with rescuing captives, retrieving valuable items, destroying equipment, obtaining jail keys using 007’s electromagnetic watch, and, of course, killing every bad guy and henchman who stands in the way.

In reflecting Bond’s hyper-violent tendencies in the movie, GoldenEye allows players to access over 20 weapons, including many seen in the film. Not only is 007’s trademark Walther PPK on hand, but players can obtain handguns and submachine guns, as well as sniper rifles, grenades, throwing knives, and, perhaps most valuable, the One-Shot Golden Gun that can kill a foe instantly with a single blast.

Anyone who grew up in the ’90s knows how popular GoldenEye 007 was, especially in the four-person multiplayer tournament mode. The game was deliberately cinematic, mirroring the GoldenEye movie in ways unseen before. As such, it became the third-best-selling Nintendo 64 game of all time, paving the way for more grounded, realistic FPS games. Frankly, without Brosnan’s extremely lethal violence in GoldenEye, there almost certainly would be no GoldenEye 007 game or its lasting legacy. GoldenEye is streaming on Prime Video.