The Fifth Element

The Fifth Element (Le Cinquième Élément, 1997) is a French sci-fi action film directed by Luc Besson for Gaumont — watch it online on iFILM. Bruce Willis plays Korben Dallas, a gruff ex-special-forces man now driving a flying cab through a vertically crowded New York in the year 2257. His shift takes an unexpected turn when a young woman drops through his roof.

That woman is Leeloo, played by Milla Jovovich, and she turns out to be the literal fifth element — a living weapon assembled to stop a force of pure destruction that swings past Earth once every five millennia. Gary Oldman plays Zorg, an arms dealer doing the evil's bidding with cheerful menace. Ian Holm is the priest Cornelius, quietly trying to hold the ancient plan together, while Chris Tucker's broadcaster Ruby Rhod provides non-stop commentary at maximum volume.

Besson conceived the story at sixteen and spent years developing it. Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes, and production designers from the Alien and Dune teams built the world. Made on a $90 million budget, the film earned over $260 million worldwide and remains a landmark of 1990s European science fiction. Stream The Fifth Element (1997) in full on iFILM.