Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French filmmaker. He directed and produced the films ''
Subway'' (1985), ''
The Big Blue'' (1988), and ''
La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Associated with the ''
Cinéma du look'' film movement, he has been nominated for a
César Award Cesar or César may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* César (film), ''César'' (film), a 1936 French romantic drama
* César (film), ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt
Places
* Cesar, Portugal
* Cesar Department, Colombia
* Cesar R ...
for Best Director and Best Picture for his films ''
Léon: The Professional'' (1994) and ''
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' (1999). He won Best Director and Best French Director for his sci-fi action film ''
The Fifth Element'' (1997). He wrote and directed the sci-fi action film ''
Lucy'' (2014) and the
space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes Space warfare in science fiction, space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, i ...
film ''
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets'' (2017).
In 1980, near the beginning of his career, he founded his own production company, Les Films du Loup, later renamed Les Films du Dauphin. It was superseded in 2000 when he co-founded
EuropaCorp with longtime collaborator . As writer, director, or producer, Besson has been involved in the creation of
more than 50 films.
Early life
Besson was born in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, to parents who both worked as
Club Med
Club Med SAS, commonly known as Club Med and previously known as Club Méditerranée SA, is a French travel and tourism operator headquartered in Paris, specializing in all-inclusive holidays. Founded in 1950, the company has been primarily ow ...
scuba-diving instructors. Influenced by this, he planned to become a
marine biologist. He spent much of his youth traveling with his parents to tourist resorts in
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Yugoslavia
, common_name = Yugoslavia
, life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation
, p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia
, flag_p ...
, and
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
. The family returned to France when he was 10. His parents divorced, and both remarried; of this, he said:
"Here there is two families, and I am the only bad souvenir of something that doesn't work," he said in the ''International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...
''. "And if I disappear, then everything is perfect. The rage to exist comes from here. I have to do something! Otherwise I am going to die."["Luc Besson: The most Hollywood of French filmmakers"](_blank)
''International Herald Tribune'', 20 May 2007
At age 17, Besson had a diving accident that left him unable to dive.
In a 2000 interview with ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', he described how this influenced his choice of career:
"I was 17 and I wondered what I was going to do. ... So I took a piece of paper and on the left I put everything I could do, or had skills for, and all the things I couldn't do. The first line was shorter and I could see that I loved writing, I loved images, I was taking a lot of pictures. So I thought maybe movies would be good. But I thought that to really know I should go to a set. And a friend of mine knew a guy whose brother was a third assistant on a short film. It's true. So, I said: 'OK, let's go on the set.' So I went on the set. The day after I went back to see my mum and told her that I was going to make films and stop school and 'bye. And I did it! Very soon after I made a short film and it was very, very bad. I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one."[Luc Besson interviewed by Richard Jobson](_blank)
''The Guardian''; accessed 20 July 2018.
Career
Besson reportedly worked on the first drafts of ''
Le Grand Bleu'' (''The Big Blue'') while still in his teens. Out of boredom, he started writing stories, including the background to what he later developed as ''
The Fifth Element'' (1997), one of his most popular movies, inspired by the
French comic books he read as a teenager.
At 18, Besson returned to his birthplace of Paris, where he took odd jobs in film to get a feel for the industry. He worked as an assistant to directors including
Claude Faraldo and
Patrick Grandperret. He directed three short films, a commissioned documentary, and several commercials. He then moved to the United States for three years, but returned to Paris, where he formed his own production company. He first named it ''Les Films du Loup'', then changed it to ''Les Films du Dauphin''.
Cinéma du look
Critics such as Raphaël Bassan and Guy Austin cite Besson as a pivotal figure in the
Cinéma du look movement—a specific, highly visual style produced from the 1980s into the early 1990s. His early films ''
Subway'' (1985), ''
The Big Blue'' (1988) and ''
La Femme Nikita'' (1990) are all considered of this stylistic school.
The term was coined by critic
Raphaël Bassan in a 1989 essay in ''La Revue du Cinema n° 449''. A partisan of the experimental cinema and friend of
New Wave ("''
nouvelle vague''") directors, Bassan grouped Besson with
Jean-Jacques Beineix and
Leos Carax as three directors who shared the style of ''"le look".'' These directors were later critically described as "favouring style over substance, and spectacle over narrative".
Besson, and most of the filmmakers so categorised, were uncomfortable with the label. He contrasted their work with France's
New Wave. "
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...
and
François Truffaut were rebelling against existing cultural values and used cinema as a means of expression simply because it was the most avant-garde medium at the time," said Besson in a 1985 interview in ''The New York Times''. "Today, the revolution is occurring entirely within the industry and is led by people who want to change the look of movies by making them better, more convincing and pleasurable to watch.
"Because it's becoming increasingly difficult to break into this field, we have developed a psychological armor and are ready to do anything in order to work," he added. "I think our ardor alone is going to shake the pillars of the moviemaking establishment."
Popular success
Many of Besson's films have achieved popular, if not always critical, success. Reviews were mixed for ''
Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue)''.
Kevin Thomas of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' wrote that the movie was "too long and initially awkward but is clearly the work of a visionary.''"''
"When the film had its premiere on opening night at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, it was mercilessly drubbed, but no matter; it was a smash," observed the ''International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...
'' in a 2007 profile of Besson. "Embraced by young people who kept returning to see it again, the movie sold 10 million tickets and quickly became what the French call a 'film générationnel,' a defining moment in the culture."
Besson's ''La Femme Nikita'' (1990) is one of his earliest action films, and Besson went on to write and produce numerous films in this genre, including the ''
Taxi'' series (1998–2007), the ''
Transporter'' series (2002–2008), and the
Jet Li
Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese-born Singaporean Martial arts, martial artist and actor. With a Jet Li filmography, film career spanning more than forty years, Li is re ...
films ''
Kiss of the Dragon'' and ''
Unleashed''. He also worked on ''
Lockout'' (2012).

From 2002 to 2005 Besson created the hugely successful
Arthur series of children's fantasy novels, which comprises ''Arthur and the Minimoys'', ''Arthur and the Forbidden City'', ''
Arthur and the Vengeance of Maltazard'' and ''Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds''.
He directed ''
Arthur and the Invisibles'' (2006), a feature film adaptation of the first two books of the collection, starring
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...
and
Robert DeNiro.
Combining
live action and animation, it was released in the UK and the US, as well as in France.
His English-language films ''
Taken'', ''
Taken 2'', and ''
Taken 3'' have been major successes; ''Taken 2'' became the largest-grossing export French film. Besson produced the promotional movie for the
Paris 2012 Olympic bid.
Studio ambitions and failures
In 2000, Besson superseded his production company by co-founding EuropaCorp with Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, with whom he had frequently worked since 1985. Le Pogam had then been Distribution Director with
Gaumont.
With EuropaCorp, Besson wanted to compete with the American major studios, but to maintain a stable of French directors and technicians producing in France, even if their films are most often in English with a foreign international star in the
lead role. EuropaCorp went public in 2006 to finance, with the help of the State, its own studios at the
Cité du Cinéma. It also sought financing and distribution partnerships in Japan and China.
By 2011, when he directed a biopic of
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She served as State Counsellor of Myanmar and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Myanmar), Ministe ...
called ''
The Lady'' (original title ''Dans la Lumiere''), Besson was spending most of his time at EuropaCorp as a writer and producer, rather than a director: he had 44 writing credits and 103 producer credits, but only 17 directing credits.
The film was a departure from Besson's favoured directorial genres, and from his preference to write the films he directs; the screenwriter was
Rebecca Frayn. Western critics singled out Besson's direction for negative comments;
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
said: "Perhaps, given his strengths in genre films, he should have chosen not to direct this one…"
After several failures, Besson returned to creative form and to international success with ''
Lucy'' (2014), which became the world's most successful French feature film, earning $469 million worldwide, superseding the previous record holder ''
The Intouchables'' ($426 million).
The blockbuster ''
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets'' (2017) had a budget of around $180 million, making it both the most expensive European and the most expensive
independent film
An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...
ever made. But by the summer of 2017, Chinese critics were snubbing it and the investment seemed impossible to make profitable.
Besson's failure was repeated with his next film, ''
Anna'' (2019), placing his company in near bankruptcy and forcing him to sell it to a creditor and then close the free, no-degree-require
school for screenwriters and directorsthat he had founded in 2012.
Recent work
Besson's film ''June & John'' (2025) was shot
guerrilla-style in Los Angeles in 2020, during the
Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. Building on a shelved pre-pandemic project Besson had been developing for a Chinese smartphone brand, the film was shot using only smartphones and a 12-person crew, and stars then-unknown actors Matilda Price and Luke Stanton Eddy.
He told ''Deadline'': "It was very joyous. It was really two actors and a director because of the lockdown … It felt good to be uniquely creative without the pressure of money."
In 2022, Besson experimented with another kind of filmmaking when he shot ''
Dogman'' (2023) in a
virtual production facility in France, as well as on location in New Jersey.
''Dogman'' was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion at the
80th Venice International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 31 August 2023.
It was released in French cinemas on 27 September 2023 by Apollo Films Distribution and
EuropaCorp Distribution, and had mixed reviews: at
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 59% based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10; while
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which uses a
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 45 out of 100 from 23 critics.
In summer 2024, Besson directed ''
Dracula: A Love Tale,'' an adaptation of ''
Dracula'' starring
Caleb Landry Jones and featuring
Christophe Waltz. As of April 2025, the film is still in post-production, but is set for a July 2025 release.
In 2025 Besson was announced as the director of ''The Last Man'', a post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring rapper
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. ( ; born October 20, 1971), better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg), is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Rooted in West Coast hip-hop, he is widely regarded as one of t ...
.
Regular collaborators
In the early 1980s, Besson met
Éric Serra
Éric Serra (; born 9 September 1959) is a French film composer, known as a frequent collaborator of director Luc Besson. He is a five-time César Award nominee, winning once for '' The Big Blue'' (1988).
Early life
Serra was born in Sain ...
and asked him to compose the score for his first short film, ''L'Avant dernier''. He subsequently had Serra compose for other films.
French actor
Jean Reno
Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez (born 30 July 1948), commonly known as Jean Reno (), is a French-Spanish actor. He established himself as a Leading actor, leading man of French cinema through his collaborations with director Luc Besson, and has w ...
has appeared in several films by Besson, including (1983), ''
Subway'' (1985),
''
The Big Blue'' (1988), ''
La Femme Nikita'' (1990), and ''
Léon: The Professional'' (1994).
Besson directed and co-wrote the screenplay of his science fiction thriller ''The Fifth Element'' (1997) with American screenwriter
Robert Mark Kamen.
["Luc Besson", ''International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2: Directors'', 4th ed. St. James Press, 2000.]
He later collaborated with Kamen on the ''
Transporter'' action series (2002–2008), and they co-wrote ''
Taken'' (2008), ''
Taken 2'' (2012), and ''
Taken 3'' (2014), which all starred
Liam Neeson.
In 2024, Besson mentioned his "fascination" with American actor
Caleb Landry Jones after working with him on ''DogMan'': "We got on so well on ''DogMan'' and since then I’ve only had one wish and that was to make another film with him. He’s crazily talented. It’s something I haven’t seen since Gary Oldman."
Critical evaluation
Besson has been described as "the most Hollywood of French filmmakers". Scott Tobias wrote that his "slick, commercial" action movies were "so interchangeable—drugs, sleaze, chuckling
supervillain
A supervillain, supervillainess or supercriminal is a major antagonist and variant of the villainous stock character who possesses Superpower (ability), superpowers. The character type is sometimes found in comic books and is often the primary ...
y, and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
-style effects—that each new project probably starts with
white-out on the title page."
American film critic
Armond White has praised Besson, whom he ranks as one of the best film producers, for refining and revolutionizing action film. He wrote that Besson dramatizes the struggle of his characters "as a conscientious resistance to human degradation".
In 2012, film critic Eric Kohn wrote in
''Indiewire'': "Luc Besson’s filmography has been spotty for years, littered with equal amounts of sensationalistic pop art and flashy duds, a tendency that extends beyond his directing credits."
Personal life
Besson has been married four times; first, in 1986, to actress
Anne Parillaud. They had a daughter, Juliette, born in 1987. Parillaud starred in Besson's ''
La Femme Nikita'' (1990). They divorced in 1991.
Besson's second wife was actress and director
Maïwenn Le Besco, whom he started dating when he was 32 and she was 15 after having met 3 years earlier.
They married in late 1992 when Le Besco, 16, was pregnant with their daughter
Shanna, who was born on 3 January 1993. Le Besco later claimed that their relationship inspired Besson's film ''
Léon'' (1994), where the plot involved the emotional relationship between an adult man and a 12-year-old girl (played by then 12-year-old
Natalie Portman).
Their marriage ended in 1997, when Besson became involved with actress
Milla Jovovich, then 19, during the production of ''
The Fifth Element'' (1997).
"We sensed the special chemistry between us immediately at the auditions and it just intensified during the filming of the movie," said Jovovich.
He married Jovovich on December 14, 1997, when he was and she was 21. They divorced in 1999.
On August 28, 2004, at age , Besson married film producer
Virginie Silla, 32. They have three children,
including the actress
Thalia Besson.
Since 2025, he is in relationship with lawyer thirty-two years younger than him.
Rape accusation
In 2018, Dutch-Belgian actress
Sand Van Roy, who appeared in ''Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets'', accused Besson of rape.
The director's lawyer Thierry Marembert stated that Besson "categorically denies these fantasist accusations" and that the accuser was "someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately".
In February 2019, French prosecutors dropped the case against him, citing lack of evidence.
In December 2021, a judge dismissed the case against Besson following a second investigation. The public prosecutor's office in Paris stated that "the investigations clearly establish that the criminal facts of rape were not committed, that the absence of consent of the civil party is not established and the existence of a constraint, threat, violence, is not characterized". In April 2022, Van Roy submitted a complaint against the magistrate in charge of the case. In June 2023, Besson was definitively cleared of all charges, following a ruling by the
Court of Cassation, the highest judicial court in France. This ruling prevents Van Roy from suing him on the same charges in France or elsewhere in Europe.
Several other women, including a former assistant, two students of
Cité du Cinéma studio, and a former employee of Besson's
EuropaCorp, who all wished to remain anonymous, described "inappropriate sexual behavior" by the director. Having no physical evidence to support their stories, they did not press charges and avoided a defamation countersuit. Their stories were not used by the
investigating judge.
Selected filmography
Directed features
Legacy and honours
Besson won the
Lumière Award for Best Director and the
César Award for Best Director, for his film ''
The Fifth Element'' (1997). He was nominated for Best Director and
Best Picture César Award Cesar or César may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* César (film), ''César'' (film), a 1936 French romantic drama
* César (film), ''César'' (play), a play by Marcel Pagnolt
Places
* Cesar, Portugal
* Cesar Department, Colombia
* Cesar R ...
s for his films ''
Léon: The Professional'' (1994) and ''
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' (1999).
Among Besson's awards are the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film Critics Prize, Fantasporto Audience Jury Award-Special Mention, Best Director, and Best Film, for ''Le Dernier Combat'' in 1983; the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon-Best Director-Foreign Film, for ''La Femme Nikita'', 1990; the
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; ; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956) Award for Best British Film, ''Nil by Mouth'', 1997; and the Best Director Cesar Award, for ''The Fifth Element'', 1997.
Besson was awarded the
Inkpot Award in 2016.
Music videos
* "Pull Marine":
Isabelle Adjani (1983)
* "
Mon légionnaire":
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor, composer, and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provocative rel ...
(1988)
* "
Que mon cœur lâche":
Mylène Farmer
Mylène Jeanne Gautier (; born 12 September 1961), known professionally as Mylène Farmer (), is a French singer and songwriter. Having sold more than 30 million records worldwide, she is among the most successful recording artists of all time ...
(1992)
* "
Love Profusion":
Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...
(2003)
* "
I Feel Everything":
Cara Delevingne (2017)
References
External links
*
Luc Besson Interview, Angel-AJewReview.net video interview with Luc Besson and Rie Rasmussen about Angel-AThe films of Luc Besson ''Hell Is for Hyphenates'', 28 February 2014
Les Films du Loup (France)��
uniFrance Films
Les Films du Dauphin–
uniFrance Films
{{DEFAULTSORT:Besson, Luc
1959 births
Living people
20th-century French screenwriters
21st-century French screenwriters
Film directors from Paris
BAFTA winners (people)
Best Director César Award winners
Best Director Lumières Award winners
French science fiction film directors
French male screenwriters
French-language film directors
French music video directors
Inkpot Award winners
French film production company founders