Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker, Milla Jovovich, Luke Perry, Brion James, Tom Lister Jr., Lee Evans, Charlie Creed-Miles

The Fifth Element Is Coming and It's Still the Most Fun Sci-Fi Ever Made

Luc Besson's gloriously unhinged sci-fi epic is one of the most visually alive films of the 90s, and it's almost here.

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JUNE 8, 2026

There are blockbusters that play it safe, and then there is The Fifth Element. Released in 1997 and set in a neon-drenched, vertically stacked New York City of 2263, this film arrived fully formed from a completely singular imagination and has never stopped being talked about since. It is loud and strange and stuffed with color, and it commits to every single one of its choices without apology.

At the center of it all is Korben Dallas, a burnt-out cab driver who gets pulled into saving the world by a woman who literally falls through the roof of his taxi. That woman is Leeloo, and she is the key to stopping an ancient evil that shows up every 500 years to end everything. The premise sounds like a lot, and it is, but the film holds it together with a kind of joyful confidence that is genuinely rare.

The Fifth Element is arriving on Tubi soon. If you have never seen it, this is the moment. If you have, you already know why this one belongs on the watchlist.

“Negative. I am a meat popsicle.”

Cast

Bruce Willis

Willis plays Korben Dallas with the exact right amount of weary reluctance. He is not a hero who wants to be a hero, and that resistance makes every moment he steps up feel earned. He is the grounded center that lets everything else in the film go completely wild around him.

Milla Jovovich

Jovovich is the film. As Leeloo, she builds an entirely believable person out of a constructed language, physical performance, and pure screen presence. The role asks for something almost impossible and she delivers it with a specificity that still holds up nearly 30 years later.

Gary Oldman

Oldman plays Zorg, the film's primary villain, with a drawling, eccentric menace that is impossible to look away from. He is clearly having the time of his life, and that energy is contagious. Every scene he is in has a different texture from the rest of the film.

Chris Tucker

Tucker plays Ruby Rhod, a flamboyant intergalactic radio host, and it is one of the most committed comedic performances in any action film from this era. He is chaotic in the best possible way, and the film is genuinely funnier every time he appears on screen.

Sneak Peek

The Fifth Element Is Coming and It's Still the Most Fun Sci-Fi Ever Made — still 1

The Fifth Element Is Coming and It's Still the Most Fun Sci-Fi Ever Made — still 2

The Fifth Element Is Coming and It's Still the Most Fun Sci-Fi Ever Made — still 3

Why you Should Watch It

The Fifth Element is the kind of film that could only have been made by someone who had been building this world in their head for decades, which is exactly what happened. Luc Besson conceived the story as a teenager and spent years developing the visual language before a single frame was shot. That obsession is visible in every detail, from the costume design by Jean Paul Gaultier to the stacked highways and floating garbage trucks of future New York. This is a film that built its world from the ground up and trusted the audience to keep up.

What makes it worth anticipating now, specifically, is that films like this do not get made anymore. It is a big-budget studio action film that is also genuinely weird, genuinely funny, and emotionally sincere without being sentimental. The action sequences are inventive, the production design is still stunning, and the central relationship at the heart of the story has real feeling underneath all the spectacle.

This is a film for people who want something that goes all the way. It does not hedge, it does not sand down its edges, and it does not explain itself more than it needs to. Coming to Tubi soon, and very much worth the wait.