Nikita (re-titled La Femme Nikita in some countries) is a 1990 French movie written and directed by Luc Besson.

Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is a teen-aged delinquent and heroin addict who participates in robbing the pharmacy of the parents of a fellow junkie. The robbery goes awry, degenerating to a gunfight with local police during which her cohort is killed. Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms, she shoots a policeman. Nikita is arrested, tried, convicted of murder, and imprisoned for life, with parole considered after thirty years.

In prison, she is drugged to simulate a death sentence; she awakens in an anonymous room. A well-dressed, hard man (Tchéky Karyo) enters and reveals that, although officially dead and buried after suicide by overdose, she is in custody of the DGSE, the French intelligence agency. She is given to choose: work as a DGSE assassin or be killed. After some resistance, she chooses the former and proves a talented killer. One of her trainers, Amande (Jeanne Moreau), transforms her from grimy gutter trash to femme fatale; Amande, too, was so rescued and recruited.

Her initiation mission, killing a diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping back to the Centre, is the film's highlight; she is graduated and begins life as a sleeper agent in Paris with her boyfriend (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a man she met in a supermarket.

Her assassin's career continues well, until an embassy document-theft goes awry, requiring the ruthless participation of 'The Cleaner' (Jean Reno) in destroying the mission's evidence and all corpses; The Cleaner is wounded and dies; Nikita abandons the Agency, the city of Paris, and her boat designer boyfriend.

Nikita was positively reviewed by critics, including Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. The film was an early modern action film from France with broad appeal world-wide. Critics and viewers noted Luc Besson's gallic inversion of Hollywood and Hong Kong action film conventions, emphasising the killer's humanity.

In 1993, Warner Bros. remade Nikita in English as Point of No Return (The Assassin), directed by John Badham and starring Bridget Fonda. Nikita also inspired the 1991 Hong Kong action film Black Cat, which closely follows the original film’s storyline.

A TV series was produced in 1997 based in this film. It was produced in Canada by Warner Bros. and Fireworks Entertainment. La Femme Nikita ran for five seasons on USA Network, and generated a sizeable cult following of its own. It was created by Joel Surnow, who later co-created 24 with fellow La Femme Nikita executive consultant Robert Cochran.