In the shadowed corridors of Cold War intrigue, where every whispered alliance could be a death sentence and every stolen glance hides a dagger, Anna slithers onto screens like a serpent in the garden of espionage. Tonight, Film4 unleashes this 2019 gem at 9pm, with streaming on Channel 4 to follow, thrusting viewers into a vortex of betrayal, beauty, and brutality that director Luc Besson crafts with his signature flair for high-octane seduction. Starring the luminous Sasha Luss as the titular assassin, flanked by Oscar luminaries Cillian Murphy and Helen Mirren, Anna isn’t just a thriller—it’s a fever dream of double-crosses and double lives, a seductive puzzle where loyalties shatter like glass under stiletto heels. As Murphy’s CIA operative and Mirren’s KGB enforcer circle their prey, the film promises twists so labyrinthine you’ll question every frame until the gut-punch finale. In an era of rebooted spies and sanitized blockbusters, Anna stands as a raw, unapologetic reminder of why espionage tales thrive on moral ambiguity and unbridled glamour. Tune in tonight, but beware: once the credits roll, trust will feel like a luxury you can no longer afford.

At its pulsing heart, Anna unfolds in the frostbitten grip of 1980s Moscow, a city of onion domes and onion-layered secrets where the Iron Curtain casts long, lethal shadows. We meet Anna Poliatova (Sasha Luss), a stunning young woman scraping by as a runway model in the Soviet sprawl, her days a blur of fashion shoots and fleeting dreams of escape. Life’s drudgery snaps when fate—or KGB recruitment—thrusts her into the underworld of state-sanctioned murder. Recruited by the charismatic operative Alex Tchenkov (Luke Evans), Anna’s latent lethality is honed under the iron gaze of Olga (Helen Mirren), a battle-scarred KGB handler whose maternal instincts war with her ruthless pragmatism. What begins as a survival pact spirals into a high-wire act of deception: Anna must infiltrate Paris’s glittering elite, seducing targets with her ethereal allure while executing hits with balletic precision. But the real venom lurks across the Atlantic divide, where CIA agent Leonard “Lenny” Miller (Cillian Murphy) sniffs out the mole eroding his agency’s ranks. As Anna juggles her dual existence—KGB siren by night, CIA temptress by day—the film hurtles toward a climax where personal freedom collides with geopolitical chess, forcing her to choose between chains of loyalty or the sweet sting of solitude.

Luc Besson, the visionary behind Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, weaves Anna from the same audacious cloth: a cocktail of balletic action, pulpy romance, and philosophical flirtations with fate. Drawing from his own script, Besson transplants the Cold War’s frost to a canvas of velvet gowns and velvet gloves, where kills unfold like choreographed dances—silenced pistols in couture bags, garrotes disguised as jewelry. The film’s non-linear structure, flashing between recruitment in 1985 Moscow and high-society hits in 1988 Paris, mirrors the fractured psyche of its anti-heroine, building suspense through fractured timelines that reveal betrayals in jagged shards. Besson’s EuropaCorp production pulses with his trademarks: a throbbing electronic score by Eric Serra that throbs like a racing heartbeat, cinematography by Thierry Arbogast that bathes scenes in neon-noir glows, and a production design by Hugues Tissandier that transforms drab Soviet blocs into opulent traps. Clocking in at a taut 118 minutes, Anna zips like a micro-Uzi, blending La Femme Nikita‘s origin vibes with Atomic Blonde‘s stylish savagery. Yet, beneath the gloss, Besson probes deeper: In a world of pawns and kings, can a woman carve her own checkmate? It’s a question laced with Besson’s feminist edge, though critics quibble it veers into male-gaze territory amid the lingerie-laden lures.

Sasha Luss, a former model making her silver-screen debut, embodies Anna with a hypnotic blend of fragility and ferocity. Discovered by Besson at a Paris fashion week, Luss’s porcelain features and lithe frame make her the perfect cipher—a blank-slate beauty whose eyes flicker from vulnerability to venom. Her performance, a tightrope of calculated seduction and suppressed rage, anchors the film’s emotional core. Watch her in the iconic restaurant sequence: perched on a stool in a crimson gown, she dispatches assailants with flips and fury that evoke John Wick in stilettos, her breath ragged but resolve unbroken. Luss isn’t just eye candy; she infuses Anna with quiet rebellion, her subtle smirks hinting at the intellect plotting her exodus from espionage’s gilded cage. “Anna isn’t a victim,” Luss reflected post-premiere. “She’s a survivor who weaponizes the world’s underestimation of her.” It’s a breakout turn that launched her into Lost in the Stars and Silent Zone, proving models can slay on screen too.

Then there’s Cillian Murphy as Lenny Miller, the chain-smoking CIA lothario whose swagger masks a soul scarred by operative losses. Fresh off Peaky Blinders‘ Tommy Shelby intensity, Murphy brings a roguish charm to Lenny—a devilish grin over whiskey neat, blue eyes that pierce like laser sights. His scenes crackle with erotic tension: a closet hideaway with Anna turns into a charged tango of whispers and near-kisses, where attraction blurs with interrogation. Murphy’s Lenny isn’t the stoic spook; he’s a hedonist haunted by ghosts, his flirtations a facade for the paranoia gnawing at his nine fallen agents. “Cillian has this innate seductiveness,” Besson praised during casting. “He makes danger feel intimate.” Murphy’s limited screen time—about 20 minutes—packs a wallop, his chemistry with Luss a slow-burn inferno that elevates the film’s romantic undercurrents. Post-Oppenheimer Oscar glow, revisiting Murphy here reveals his pre-lead versatility: the Irish enigma thriving in pulp as potently as prestige.

Helen Mirren, the grande dame of British cinema, steals every frame as Olga, the KGB’s iron-fisted matriarch whose vodka-soaked wisdom drips with wry cynicism. At 74 during filming, Mirren channels a lifetime of gravitas—from The Queen‘s regal poise to RED‘s trigger-happy retiree—into a handler who’s equal parts mentor and monster. Olga’s arc is a masterclass in layered menace: barking orders in a fur-collared coat, she eyes Anna’s audacity with a mix of pride and peril, her half-Russian heritage lending authenticity to the gravelly accent. Mirren’s scenes with Luss simmer with surrogate-mother fire—tough-love training montages in smoke-filled safehouses, where Olga imparts kill-or-be-killed truths over black bread and borscht. “Helen brings this magnificent authority,” Luss gushed. “She’s terrifying, but you crave her approval.” Mirren’s Olga isn’t cartoon villainy; she’s a product of the system’s cruelty, her final-act reckoning a poignant gut-twist that humanizes the Cold War’s collateral damage. It’s Mirren at her fiercest, a performance that earned whispers of “Oscar bait” despite the film’s modest awards run.

Rounding out the ensemble, Luke Evans smolders as Alex, Anna’s KGB recruiter and reluctant lover, his brooding intensity a bridge between passion and peril. Evans, channeling The Hobbit‘s princely poise with Dracula Untold‘s darkness, grounds the romance in raw vulnerability—their Paris trysts a fleeting oasis amid the mayhem. Alexander Petrov adds Slavic steel as the KGB’s Vassiliev, a bureaucratic butcher whose chessboard machinations drive the operative purge. Supporting turns from Lera Abova as the doomed agent Maureen and Anna Krippa as the fiery fellow recruit inject urgency, while cameos like Eric Godon’s stone-faced Yuri pepper the periphery with quiet menace. The cast’s multinational mosaic—Irish, British, French, Russian—mirrors the film’s global stakes, their accents clashing like covert ops gone wrong.

Production on Anna was a whirlwind of Besson’s kinetic energy, kicking off in October 2017 after a casting coup that snagged Mirren and Murphy in quick succession. Shot across Budapest’s Soviet-era facades (doubling for Moscow) and Paris’s Haussmann haunts, the $30 million budget exploded into visceral set pieces: a cat-and-mouse chase through the Louvre’s underbelly, a shootout in a snow-dusted Red Square replica, and that legendary brawl where Anna wields a restaurant like a weapon. Besson’s hands-on direction—storyboarding every flip and feint—ensured the action’s fluidity, with stunt coordinator David Leitch (John Wick) drilling Luss in Krav Maga till her bruises matched her character’s resolve. Challenges abounded: Mirren’s immersion demanded vodka authenticity (swapped for prop), Murphy’s schedule juggled Dunkirk reshoots, and Besson’s own scandal—amid #MeToo reckonings—cast a pall over the June 2019 premiere. Yet, the film’s defiant release in France (topping charts with €5.8 million opening) proved its resilience, grossing $31.6 million worldwide—a modest win for a genre darling.

Critically, Anna polarized like a botched defection. Detractors decried its “blandness” and “exhausting” timeline jumps, with The Guardian slamming the “pulse-lacking” kills and Los Angeles Times noting its overshadow by Besson’s baggage. Rotten Tomatoes tallies a 34% from 73 reviews, branding it a “slick but soulless” echo of Nikita. Yet, audiences embraced its guilty-pleasure pulse, IMDb’s 6.7/10 from 105,000 votes praising the “electrifying thrills” and “breathtaking twists.” Collider hailed Murphy’s “steamiest role,” a pre-Oppenheimer showcase of his seductive edge, while Rolling Stone appreciated Besson’s “pro move” on Cold War honeypots. Fans on Reddit dub it a “parody-spoof hybrid,” reveling in the absurdity—Mirren’s glinting eye-rolls, Murphy’s closet chemistry—as “cheesy fun” that redeems Sasha’s novice stumbles. In 2025’s streaming surge, Anna‘s Netflix resurgence (trending post-Oppenheimer buzz) cements its cult status: a film that thrives on rewatch, where each viewing peels another layer of deceit.

What endures about Anna is its seductive sprawl—the way it marries pulp aesthetics with peeks into power’s underbelly. Olga’s vodka-fueled monologues on loyalty’s cost, Lenny’s whiskey-laced regrets over lost agents, Anna’s defiant strut through Paris fashion weeks: these moments humanize the archetype, questioning if freedom’s price is worth the blood on the ledger. In today’s fractured geopolitics, the film’s East-West tango resonates afresh, a reminder that spies aren’t born in shadows; they’re forged in the lies we tell ourselves. Besson, ever the provocateur, delivers not redemption but reckoning—a finale where Anna’s choice echoes like a silenced shot, leaving viewers breathless in the silence.

Tonight’s airing isn’t mere nostalgia; it’s a gateway to rediscovery. As Murphy and Mirren trade barbs across the divide, Anna ignites the screen with a fire that’s twisted, timeless, and utterly seductive. In a landscape of formulaic foes, this espionage odyssey dares you to trust no one—not the characters, not the plot, not even your own pulse racing toward that final, shattering shot. Don’t blink; the truth waits for no one. Settle in at 9pm on Film4, and let the lies begin.