Bruce Willis’ The Fifth Element is now available to stream for free on Tubi. Released in 1997, director Luc Besson’s sci-fi adventure earned approximately $264 million worldwide, with Willis leading a cast that includes Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker. Nearly three decades later, The Fifth Element’s vision of the future still has room for surprises, including a New York where cars fly between skyscrapers, but a cab driver can still lose his license for breaking traffic laws.
Willis plays Korben Dallas, a former soldier trying to make a living behind the wheel. When Leeloo, played by Jovovich, crashes through his taxi’s roof while fleeing the authorities, he chooses to help her escape. That decision pulls him into a search for four ancient stones needed to stop a force threatening Earth. Leeloo is the fifth element that can make those stones work, leaving Korben responsible for protecting someone humanity needs but whose language he barely understands.
Korben’s patience gets an even tougher test from Ruby Rhod, Tucker’s celebrity broadcaster, who turns their time together into material for his radio audience. Tucker fills the room with chatter and high-pitched panic while Willis answers with short, increasingly irritated responses. Willis gets laughs out of how little Korben wants to participate in Ruby’s show. He’s trying to keep them alive while Ruby keeps a microphone in his face, broadcasting every crisis. Even with Ruby screaming beside him, Korben keeps shooting back and working out how to get them out alive.
The Fifth Element Is Now Available To Stream For Free On Tubi
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The Fifth Element arrived on Tubi in the U.S. on November 1, 2026. It’s free with ads, runs 126 minutes, and carries a PG-13 rating for sci-fi violence, some sexuality, and brief nudity (via Tubi). That puts it alongside another of the service’s November additions, I Am Legend, though the two offer very different versions of New York. Korben’s city is so crowded that even the sky has traffic jams.
Most of the movie’s box office revenue came from overseas. The Numbers lists $63.6 million in domestic ticket sales and $200.3 million internationally, for approximately $264 million worldwide. Its reported production budget was $95 million. In North America, it opened at number one and stayed there for a second weekend before The Lost World: Jurassic Park took the top spot (via The Numbers).
It also arrived during a good stretch for Willis’ sci-fi movies. He had played a frightened time traveler in 12 Monkeys two years earlier, and would lead Armageddon the following year, though the role of Korben arguably lets him have more fun.
Bruce Willis Movie Remains One Of The Most Original Sci-Fi Blockbusters Of The 1990s
Korben’s breakfast explains why The Fifth Element is worth watching between the shootouts. A flying Chinese restaurant pulls up to his apartment window, and the cook sticks around to discuss his love life. Besson takes something as routine as ordering food and invents a whole scene around how it might work in the future. There’s pleasure in discovering this city, even when Korben is doing very little.
Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes give its inhabitants just as much personality. Ruby Rhod’s enormous leopard-print collar suits a broadcaster who expects everyone’s attention, while Zorg’s transparent half-cap makes his already peculiar haircut impossible to ignore. Korben’s orange tank top makes him look like the only person who didn’t know there was a dress code. It suits a cab driver who never asked to get involved in any of this.
The concert aboard Fhloston Paradise brings that inventiveness into the action. While Korben watches the blue Diva Plavalaguna perform, Leeloo fights the Mangalores backstage. Opera gives way to a dance beat and dizzying vocal runs, with punches landing alongside the music. The music makes Leeloo’s fight feel choreographed for the Diva’s concert, even though the audience can’t see her. Nearly 30 years later, The Fifth Element still makes watching Leeloo beat up aliens to an opera singer’s dance track a good time.
The Fifth Element
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