Crime · Drama · Action
French (Léon)
1994 · Directed by Luc Besson · 111 min
A solitary professional killer in New York lives a precise, ritualised life in a small apartment. His routine is disturbed when a young girl from the same building comes to depend on him. A stylish thriller that mixes cold violence with an unlikely tenderness.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining example of 1990s European-made genre cinema aimed at a global audience, and a key film in the hitman-with-a-conscience tradition that later action cinema kept returning to.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a fairy tale dressed as a crime film: a gentle, almost childlike man living in a violent world.
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