Based on Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name, this chilling and influential classic follows the story of Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), an FBI agent who makes the unorthodox decision to seek assistance from the renowned cannibalistic serial killer, Dr Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), in her efforts to track down another serial killer, ‘Buffalo Bill’.
The fraught power dynamics of gender bristle alongside the disturbing psychological games that begin to unravel between Starling, with Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver, Panic Room) lending her diminutive femininity a complex agency in a world of men, and the darkly erudite charisma of Lecter, a performance by Anthony Hopkins (The Ends of the Day, The Father) that has become justifiably iconic.
Still, the only horror film to have won the Oscar for Best Picture, The Silence of the Lambs is a tense and coldly horrifying dissection of unhinged intelligence. It has irreversibly revolutionised cinematic portrayals of the serial killer from villainous cartoons of evil to the unnerving allure of a psychopathic genius.