Natalie will be attending the Deauville Film Festival to receive a lifetime achievement award this evening. Interestingly, this day also marks the thirtieth anniversary of the French (and world) premiere of Leon, The Professional, her first feature film.

It’s a movie that marked Natalie’s breakthrough on the big screen and is still highly regarded by a lot of viewers to this day (it remains Natalie’s highest-rated film on IMDB).
Unfortunately, many critics and specialized film media have been changing their minds about the movie in recent years, with many considering its subject matter “problematic” in some ways. Even Natalie herself stated in an interview with THR that she has a “complicated relationship” with the film.

Whatever the case, it is the film that revealed her as an actress to the entire world, and that made many of us become fans of Natalie, and many viewers continue to enjoy that atypical story of friendship and love between a ruthless killer (but with certain moral rules) and a girl eager to take revenge on the men who killed her family.

Let’s hope that Natalie’s career continues to be as fruitful and successful as it has been these past thirty years…