Film

Nikita

Name: Nikita
Genre: Action, Thriller
Released: 1990
Cast: Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Tchéky Karyo, Jean Reno, Marc Duret

Luc Besson's sleek, brutal fable about a delinquent junkie rebuilt into a government killing machine, and the human being that keeps leaking through the training. It's stylish early-'90s Euro-action — blue nightclub light, sudden violence, a soft ache of romance — anchored by Anne Parillaud's extraordinary, mercurial performance. Cool, cruel, and surprisingly tender underneath.

TMDb rating

7.1

If you liked this

Léon: The Professional1994

Besson's spiritual companion piece: the same fascination with a killer discovering tenderness, the same Jean Reno gravitas, the same neon Paris melancholy, but even more heartbreaking.

But The central relationship between Léon and Mathilda still unsettles some viewers, and rightly so.

The Bourne Identity2002

A trained assassin trying to remember who he was before the agency owned him — America's answer to Nikita's identity crisis, minus the romance, plus relentless momentum.

But Shaky-cam action and a chase-first plot if you wanted Nikita's slower, more intimate ache.

Hanna2011

A girl raised and trained as a weapon by a shadowy handler, sent into the world to test what's left of her humanity — Nikita's DNA filtered through fairy tale.

But The Chemical Brothers score and fable-like tone might feel more arty than the pulpy thrill you came for.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Le Samouraï1967

This is the film Besson was obviously channeling — the lone killer, the fatalism, the cool blue Paris nights. Nikita's soul, minus the second chance.

Alain Delon's contract killer, silent and ritualistic, living by a code that's already broken him — the ice-cold blueprint that Besson and half of action cinema since have been quoting for decades.

But It's slow and dialogue-light, more interested in mood and geometry than in action or feeling.

Atomic Blonde2017

Charlize Theron as a cold, gorgeous, brutally competent spy in a neon Cold War Berlin — all of Nikita's style cranked up to garish, glorious maximum.

But The double-cross spy plot is deliberately murky; some find it more style than substance.

Red Sparrow2018

A Russian ballerina coerced into becoming a state seductress-assassin — the government-owns-your-body premise taken further and nastier than Nikita dared.

But It's grim and sexually exploitative in ways some viewers find gratuitous rather than pointed.

Salt2010

Angelina Jolie as a sleeper agent whose loyalties, and even identity, come apart at speed — pure chase-thriller adrenaline in Nikita's tradition.

But It's much dumber and more disposable than Nikita, all momentum and no ache.

Kill Bill: Vol. 12003

Tarantino's operatic revenge saga gives you the trained-female-killer archetype at its most stylised and gleeful — Nikita's cousin, dialed up to comic-book extremes.

But The cartoonish gore and genre-mashing swagger are a world away from Nikita's cooler, sadder register.

The Long Kiss Goodnight1996

A suburban mom discovers she used to be a government assassin — a pulpier, funnier flipside of Nikita's buried-past premise, with terrific chemistry and stuntwork.

But The tone is broader and jokier than Nikita, closer to a buddy action-comedy than a character study.

Colombiana2011no page yet

Besson again, this time as writer: a girl trained from childhood into a precise, ruthless killer chasing her own vengeance — a lesser cousin but still unmistakably his.

But It's thinner and more formulaic than Nikita, closer to a checklist of the same beats.

Gunslinger Girl2003no page yet

It takes Nikita's exact premise — the state manufacturing a killer out of a broken young life — and sits with the psychological wreckage far longer and more explicitly than the film ever does.

An anime about young girls surgically and psychologically rebuilt into government assassins, quietly devastating about what that does to a person who never got to choose it.

But It's slow and melancholic, more interested in trauma and dependency than action; subtitles and anime conventions may be a barrier.