MadAnalysis 5 is a framework for phenomenological investigations at particle colliders. Based on a C++ kernel, this program allows to efficiently perform, in a straightforward and user-friendly fashion, sophisticated physics analyses of event files such as those generated by a large class of Monte Carlo (MC) event generators. MadAnalysis 5 comes with two modes of running. The first one, easier to handle, uses the strengths of a powerful Python interface to implement the analysis utilising a set of intuitive commands. The second one requires implementing the analysis in the C++ programming language directly within the core of the analysis framework. This opens unlimited possibilities concerning the level of complexity that can be reached by the analysis, which is only limited by the programming skills and the originality of the user.