Movie · 1990 · Action, Thriller · 1h 57m · R · French
Curator score: 6.1/10 (140.4K ratings)
She murders. So she can live.
Overview
A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.1/10
IMDb: 7.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.63/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Metacritic: 65
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
Luc Besson
Production
Gaumont, Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematografica, Les Films du Loup, Tiger Cinematografica
Cast
Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Tchéky Karyo, Jean Reno, Marc Duret, Jeanne Moreau, Patrick Fontana, Roland Blanche, Jacques Boudet, Jean Bouise, Philippe du Janerand, Alain Lathière, Laura Chéron, Pierre-Alain de Garrigues, Helene Aligier, Philippe Leroy, Patrick Pérez, Bruno Randon, Vincent Skimenti, Joseph Teruel
Curator Review
Verdict
A stylish, influential French assassin thriller with a strong central performance and a cool, pulpy momentum. It’s not as emotionally rich as its reputation sometimes suggests, but the film’s neon-soaked atmosphere, moral ambiguity, and proto-modern female-assassin template still make it worth seeing.
Best for
fans of sleek 90s European action-thrillers
viewers interested in the origins of the female assassin subgenre
people who like morally messy antihero stories
fans of Luc Besson’s kinetic, pop-art style
Skip if
you want deeply written character psychology
you’re sensitive to the male-gaze framing of women
you prefer tightly logical espionage plotting
you want action that’s more brutal or contemporary
Overview
Nikita is one of those films that helped define an entire lane of action cinema: glossy, romantic, violent, and slightly unhinged. Luc Besson stages the transformation of a delinquent into a government assassin with real visual flair, and Anne Parillaud gives the role enough volatility and fragility to keep the movie moving even when the script is more interested in attitude than interiority.
Worth noting
What lingers most is the film’s mood: rain-slicked streets, cold institutional spaces, and a sense that every relationship is transactional, even the tender ones. The action is effective rather than spectacular, but the movie’s influence is bigger than its set pieces. You can feel how much later assassin films borrowed from its cool surface and its idea of a woman weaponized by systems around her.
Bottom line
It’s also a film that invites criticism. The character is often defined through men, and the movie’s idea of liberation is compromised by the same power structures it dramatizes. Still, as a piece of stylish genre filmmaking with a memorable central performance, it remains compelling and historically important.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Dolev Amitai (2.5★) · 276 likes
La Femma Nikita is the film Lub Besson made before Leon.So obviously some hype is there.
But unfortunately, it does not reach the same heights as Leon.
Nikita suffers from something I don't see much in films.
Its best part is in the middle. It is bookended by two rather dissapointing parts, at least for me.
The first part of the film is a little confused, and honestly a little annoying.I get that Nikita is a drug addict,… more
robin moon (2★) · 262 likes
This is a pretty big case of "dude writing a 'female power fantasy' that's actually a male sex fantasy." If you needed more confirmation of this, the final scene of the film isn't Nikita going off and living a happy life, it's the two most significant men in her life having a lovely chat about how they'll both miss her after one of them has torn up a note she left for the other out of jealousy.
shookone (3.5★) · 189 likes
the whole perverse mental apparatus of Besson is visible here; La femme(!) Nikita is very much the epitome of what his mind would produce in the following decades. Besson’s fetish object as usual: a naive (not so innocent) but wild animal. a young woman as an enigmatic beast, of violence as much as of sexuality. "girls just wanna have fun" is a sentence that Besson is aware of, being very scared of it. first she’s becoming the victim of drug… more the whole perverse mental apparatus of Besson is visible here; La femme(!) Nikita is very much the epitome of what his mind would produce in the following decades. Besson’s fetish object as usual: a naive (not so innocent) but wild animal. a young woman as an enigmatic beast, of violence as much as of sexuality. "girls just wanna have fun" is a sentence that Besson is aware of, being very scared of it. first she’s becoming the victim of drug… more
Killian Morlaes (4★) · 181 likes
French culture is wine, baguette, cheese and Nikita killing people.
Angelica Jade Bastién🪼🌷 (2★) · 154 likes
Nikita is such a non-character. I have no idea about who she is, what she desires, and what propels her. She’s a mess of impulses with no inner guide or reason behind them. Never need to see this again.