Anne Parillaud is screaming. It’s not a dainty, cinematic scream designed to look pretty for the camera; it’s a visceral, feral howl of a cornered animal. This is how we meet the protagonist in the La Femme Nikita film, and honestly, it’s still one of the most jarring introductions in action cinema history. Long before every blockbuster had a "gritty reboot," Luc Besson gave us a junkied-out murderer who bites a cop's ear and gets "executed" by the state, only to wake up in a sterile room being told she now belongs to the government. It’s brutal.
We’ve seen the tropes a thousand times since 1990. The "sexy assassin" is a cliché that’s been beaten to death by a decade of mediocre streaming movies. But La Femme Nikita is different because it isn't actually an action movie—not at its core. It’s a tragedy about identity theft. The French title was just Nikita, but the international market added the "La Femme" bit, perhaps worried audiences wouldn't know it was about a woman. They needn't have worried. Once you see Parillaud’s transformation from a twitching addict to a sophisticated killing machine, you don’t forget it.
The film didn't just spawn a US remake (Point of No Return) and two separate TV shows. It created a visual language. If you like John Wick or Atomic Blonde, you owe a debt to Nikita. But those movies often forget the grime. They forget the cost.
The Brutal Evolution of a Ghost
The pacing in the La Femme Nikita film is weirdly perfect. It doesn’t rush the training. We watch Nikita struggle with basic social cues while learning how to assemble a rifle. One of the most famous scenes involves her being taken out to a high-end restaurant, Le Train Bleu, for her birthday. She thinks she’s finally being treated like a human being by her handler, Bob (played with a creepy, paternalistic charm by Tchéky Karyo). Then he hands her a gift. It’s not jewelry. It’s a Desert Eagle.
"Finish the job," he says.
She has to assassinate a target in a crowded room and then find her own way out through a bricked-up window. It’s a claustrophobic, terrifying sequence. Besson uses wide lenses in tight spaces to make you feel as trapped as she is. Most directors would have made this a "girl boss" moment. Besson makes it feel like a panic attack.
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Nikita’s "graduation" gift is a new life in the real world. She gets an apartment. She gets a boyfriend, Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade), who is a sweet, oblivious checkout clerk. This is where the movie gets truly painful to watch. She is trying to play house while waiting for the red light on her phone to blink. When it blinks, she has to go kill people. The duality is exhausting. You see it in Parillaud’s eyes—she’s constantly vibrating with the effort of not collapsing.
Jean Reno and the Birth of The Cleaner
You can't talk about the La Femme Nikita film without talking about Victor the Cleaner. Jean Reno shows up in the final act, and he’s onscreen for maybe ten minutes, but he completely hijacks the movie. He is a precursor to Léon: The Professional. Victor is a biological machine. He dissolves bodies in acid with the same emotional investment most people use to wash dishes.
The mission goes sideways. It’s a messy, bloody disaster at an embassy. Victor is brought in to "clean" the mess, which basically means killing everyone. Watching Nikita realize that Victor is her future—a soul-dead tool with no life outside of the agency—is the movie's true climax. It’s not about the gunfight; it’s about the realization that she is a dead woman walking.
Many people forget that Besson was part of the Cinéma du look movement in France. This was a style that prioritized style over substance, or so the critics said. They were wrong. In Nikita, the style is the substance. The blue-hued lighting, the slick surfaces, and the synth-heavy score by Eric Serra create a world that feels cold and artificial. It reflects the life the government has built for her. It's a cage made of neon and chrome.
Why the Remakes Failed to Catch the Magic
- Point of No Return (1993): Starring Bridget Fonda. It’s fine. It’s a beat-for-beat copy, but it lacks the European nihilism. It feels too clean.
- La Femme Nikita (TV Series, 1997-2001): Peta Wilson was great, but the show turned it into a "mission of the week" procedural. The existential dread was watered down for cable TV.
- Nikita (TV Series, 2010-2013): Maggie Q brought incredible physicality, but by then, the story was a standard spy thriller. It lost the "junkie-to-lady" character arc that made the original so uncomfortable.
The original film works because it doesn't try to make Nikita a hero. She’s a victim who becomes a victimizer. Honestly, the ending is one of the most haunting "happy" endings in cinema. She escapes, but at what cost? She leaves behind the only man who loved her and the only father figure she had, who happened to be her jailer.
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Technical Mastery and the Eric Serra Score
Let’s talk about the sound. Eric Serra’s score is iconic. It doesn't sound like a traditional orchestral action score. It’s metallic. It’s industrial. It sounds like someone hitting pipes in a basement. It fits the urban decay of the film's first half and the cold precision of the second.
Besson’s camera work was also revolutionary for the time. He used "shaky cam" before it became a migraine-inducing trend in the 2000s. In the pharmacy shootout at the start of the movie, the camera is right there in the dirt with the punks. It’s frantic. Then, as Nikita becomes more trained, the camera work stabilizes. The film’s visual language evolves alongside her. It’s subtle, but it works on your subconscious.
A lot of modern viewers might find the middle section slow. We spend a lot of time watching Nikita learn how to put on lipstick from a refined woman named Amande (played by the legendary Jeanne Moreau). But these scenes are vital. They show the stripping away of her old self. Moreau’s character is essentially teaching her how to wear a "woman suit" so she can move through society unnoticed. It’s a commentary on gender roles that was pretty ahead of its time for an "action" flick.
What Most People Get Wrong About Nikita
There’s a common misconception that Nikita is a "feminist icon." It’s complicated. On one hand, she’s a powerful operative. On the other, she is entirely created and controlled by men. Bob "makes" her. Marco "saves" her. Victor "cleans" for her.
The movie is actually a critique of that control. Nikita’s final act of defiance isn't a big explosion or a witty one-liner. It’s simply leaving. She disappears. She refuses to be the thing they built. She rejects the narrative they forced her into. In that sense, the La Femme Nikita film is more of a character study about reclaiming agency than it is a spy movie.
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If you’re watching it for the first time in 2026, you might be surprised by how small the stakes feel. She isn't saving the world. She isn't stopping a nuclear bomb. She’s just trying to survive a botched embassy heist. And that’s why it works. The stakes are personal. If she fails, she dies. Or worse, she goes back to the basement.
Actionable Insights for Cinephiles
If you want to truly appreciate the impact of this film, you need to look at it through the lens of its era. 1990 was a transition year. The big, muscle-bound action stars of the 80s were starting to fade. Audiences wanted something sleeker, something more "European."
How to watch La Femme Nikita today:
- Seek out the 4K restoration: The colors in this film are specific. The deep blues and harsh fluorescents need the high dynamic range to really pop. Standard streaming versions often look muddy.
- Watch it in French with subtitles: The dubbing is notorious for stripping the emotion out of Anne Parillaud’s performance. Her voice goes from a raspy growl to a soft whisper, and you need to hear the original audio to get the full effect.
- Double-feature it with Léon: If you want to see the "Besson-verse" evolve, watch Nikita followed by Léon: The Professional. You can see the DNA of the former in the latter, especially in the way Reno plays his character.
- Pay attention to the reflections: Besson uses mirrors and glass constantly. It’s a visual metaphor for Nikita’s fragmented identity. Count how many times her face is distorted or doubled in a scene.
The legacy of the La Femme Nikita film isn't just in the remakes. It’s in the way we view female protagonists in action cinema. It moved the needle away from the "damsel" or the "invincible warrior" toward something much more human and much more broken. It’s a movie that smells like gunpowder and expensive perfume.
The final shot of Bob and Marco sitting in the apartment, two men who "loved" her in their own twisted ways, realizing she’s gone forever, is perfect. They are left with nothing but a document and a memory. Nikita is gone. She’s finally no one. And in her world, being "no one" is the only way to be free.
To truly understand the influence of this masterpiece, your next move is to track down the behind-the-scenes footage of Anne Parillaud’s training. She spent months in isolation and weapons training to inhabit the role, a level of commitment that shows in every frame. Watch the film again, focusing specifically on her physicality—the way she moves in the first ten minutes versus the last ten. It’s a masterclass in physical acting that modern CGI-heavy films simply cannot replicate.