Among Besson’s awards are the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film Critics Prize, Fantasporto Audience Jury Award-Special Mention, Best Director, and Best Film, for Le Dernier Combat in 1983; the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon-Best Director-Foreign Film, for La Femme Nikita, 1990; the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, Nil by Mouth, 1997; and the Best Director Cesar Award, for The Fifth Element, 1997.

Besson, along with most of the filmmakers so categorised, was uncomfortable with the label, particularly in light of the achievements of their forebears: France’s New Wave. “Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut were rebelling against existing cultural values and used cinema as a means of expression simply because it was the most avant-garde medium at the time,” said Besson in a 1985 interview in The New York Times. “Today, the revolution is occurring entirely within the industry and is led by people who want to change the look of movies by making them better, more convincing and pleasurable to watch.

Besson has been married four times; first, in 1986, to actress Anne Parillaud who starred in Besson’s La Femme Nikita (1990). Besson and Parillaud had a daughter, Juliette, born in 1987. The couple divorced in 1991.

Critics cite Besson as a pivotal figure in the Cinéma du look movement, a specific, highly visual style produced from the 1980s into the early 1990s. Subway (1985), The Big Blue (1988) and La Femme Nikita (1990) are all considered to be of this stylistic school. The term was coined by critic Raphaël Bassan in a 1989 essay in La Revue du Cinema n° 449. A partisan of the experimental cinema and friend of the New Wave (“nouvelle vague”) directors, Bassan grouped Besson with Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax as three directors who shared the style of “le look.” These directors were later described critically as favouring style over substance, and spectacle over narrative.

Besson’s second wife was actress and director Maïwenn Le Besco, who he started dating when he was 31 and she was 15. They were married in late 1992 when Le Besco, 16, was pregnant with their daughter Shanna, who was born on 3 January 1993. Le Besco later claimed that their relationship inspired Besson’s film Léon (1994), where the plot involved the emotional relationship between an adult man and a 12-year-old girl. Their marriage ended in 1997, when Besson became involved with actress Milla Jovovich during the filming of The Fifth Element (1997). He married the 22-year-old on 14 December 1997, at the age of 38, but they divorced in 1999.

In 2000, Besson superseded his production company by co-founding EuropaCorp with Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, with whom he had frequently worked since 1985. Le Pogam had then been Distribution Director with Gaumont. EuropaCorp has had strong growth based on several English-language films, with international distribution. It has production facilities in Paris, Normandy, and Hollywood, and is establishing distribution partnerships in Japan and China.

On 28 August 2004, at the age of 45, Besson married film producer Virginie Silla. The couple has three children: Thalia, Sateen, and Mao Besson.

Besson directed a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi called The Lady (original title Dans la Lumiere), which was released in the fall of 2011. He also worked on Lockout, which was released in April 2012.

In 2018, he was accused of rape by actress Sand Van Roy and other actresses who wished to remain anonymous. The director’s lawyer Thierry Marembert stated that Besson “categorically denies these fantasist accusations” and that the accuser was “someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately”. Five women have made similar statements against Besson, including a former assistant, two students of Cité du Cinéma studio, and a former employee of Besson’s EuropaCorp.