Besson has been married four times; first, in 1986, to actress Anne Parillaud. They had a daughter, Juliette, born in 1987. Parillaud starred in Besson's La Femme Nikita (1990). They divorced in 1991. Besson's second wife was actress and director Maïwenn Le Besco, whom he started dating when he was 32 and she was 15

after having met 3 years earlier.They married in late 1992 when Le Besco, 16, was pregnant with their daughter Shanna, who was born on 3 January 1993.
Their marriage ended in 1997, when Besson became involved with actress Milla Jovovich, then 19, during the production of The Fifth Element (1997)."We sensed the special chemistry between us immediately at the auditions and it just intensified during the filming of the movie," said Jovovich. He married Jovovich on December 14, 1997, when he was 38 and she was 21. They divorced in 1999. In 2018, Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy, who appeared in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, accused Besson of rape.