Léon: The Professional (1994)
- To accurately portray their role in Léon: The Professional, Jean Reno spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Luc Besson.
- Léon: The Professional utilized mostly practical sets and locations to ground the story, a specific choice insisted upon by Luc Besson.
Léon: The Professional is a 1994 French-American action thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Jean Reno as Léon Montana, a solitary, illiterate Italian-American hitman living in New York City whose carefully ordered existence is upended when his twelve-year-old neighbor Mathilda, played by Natalie Portman in her film debut, seeks refuge in his apartment after her family is murdered by corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield, played by Gary Oldman. An unlikely bond forms between the emotionally stunted assassin and the grief-stricken, precociously tough girl, as Léon teaches Mathilda the art of assassination while she teaches him to read and to feel.
Natalie Portman's astonishing debut performance — she was only 11 years old during filming — announced the arrival of a major talent and remains one of the most impressive child performances in cinema history. Gary Oldman's performance as Stansfield was a masterclass in unhinged villainy, with his pill-popping, Beethoven-loving corrupt agent becoming one of the most quotable antagonists of the 1990s. Jean Reno brought a melancholic gentleness to Léon that made the character unexpectedly sympathetic despite his profession.
Luc Besson's original cut of the film, released internationally as "Léon: Version Intégrale," included 24 additional minutes that expanded Mathilda's character but also intensified the controversial romantic undertones of the relationship, which have been debated by critics and audiences for decades. The film earned $132 million worldwide on a $16 million budget and has become a cult classic, consistently ranked among the greatest action films of the 1990s.
