The Silence Of The Lambs: 10 Things That Still Hold Up Today

Jonathan Demme’s 1991 psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs is widely regarded by critics and audiences alike to be one of the greatest movies ever made. It swept the Oscars upon its initial release and made timeless icons out of its lead characters, Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

While a lot of movies that audiences adored in the ‘90s have failed to stand the test of time, The Silence of the Lambs is just as terrifying and powerful today as it was when it first hit theaters.

10 Anthony Hopkins’ Chilling Performance As Hannibal Lecter

Anthony Hopkins earned a Best Actor Oscar with less than half an hour of screen time for his chilling portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychopathic psychiatrist with a taste for human flesh. This performance is proof that there are no small parts, only small actors, because Hopkins left an unforgettable impression on audiences with just a few short scenes.

Hopkins said on the DVD commentary that his performance was inspired by HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which shows in the eerie, captivating calmness in his voice. Since the film’s release, Lecker has only grown in stature as one of cinema’s scariest villains, with Hopkins returning to the role in Hannibal and Red Dragon.

9 Jodie Foster’s Nuanced Portrayal Of Clarice Starling

Hopkins’ Hannibal might be the most culturally iconic and recognizable character from The Silence of the Lambs, but the emotional core of the movie is Jodie Foster as FBI rookie Clarice Starling. It’s Clarice the audience identifies with and is led through scenes of unrelenting tension and brutality.

Like her co-star, Foster deservingly won an Oscar for her performance. Clarice has gone into law enforcement as a way of fighting back against her childhood traumas, and her gruesome first case proves to be a crash course in the worst of humanity. Foster brings nuance and pathos to every step of Clarice’s journey from an inexperienced agent struggling with her own inner demons to the only person who can stop Buffalo Bill.

8 The Creepy Atmosphere

As it stands, The Silence of the Lambs is the only horror movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it’s more than deserving of that title.

What makes Jonathan Demme’s film a masterwork of horror is that it doesn’t rely on jump scares. The handful of jump scares work beautifully, but Demme mainly draws terror from an overriding creepy atmosphere that permeates throughout the whole movie.

7 The Horror Of Lecter’s Escape

Most of The Silence of the Lambs’ horror is drawn from Demme’s atmospheric filmmaking, but one particularly terrifying set-piece with a couple of big scares is Hannibal’s escape.

While he’s being transferred to another prison far away from his mortal enemy Dr. Chilton, Hannibal launches his escape plan. He murders and mutilates the guards watching him, then wears one of their faces as a mask to trick the cops and paramedics.

6 Jonathan Demme’s Sharp Portrait Of A Woman In A Male-Dominated Workplace

Although there’s a serial killer on the loose, The Silence of the Lambs is primarily about a woman struggling to advance in a male-dominated workplace, which Demme frames sharply in a few scenes at the beginning of the movie. Male recruits tower over Clarice in the elevator. The men train in groups while Clarice is left training alone. All of Clarice’s superiors are men and her first major assignment is a male serial killer who targets women.

The blatant sexism faced by Clarice only gets worse when she goes out in the field. When she first visits Hannibal at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Dr. Chilton makes a pass at her and one of the inmates flings semen at her.

5 Hannibal’s Strange Likability

Any cannibalistic serial killer is going to be pretty reprehensible, but Anthony Hopkins brings a strange likability to Hannibal Lecter.

He’s comfortable with who he is, which the audience can admire (even if who he is eats people), and he’s oddly charismatic. His grisly rap sheet is more than a little disturbing, but it’s impossible not to be charmed by him.

4 The Cross-Cutting In The FBI House Raid

The house raid sequence in The Silence of the Lambs showcases some of the most brilliant editing of all time. Through meticulous, masterful cross-cutting, Demme and his Oscar-nominated editor Craig McKay lead the audience to believe that Jack Crawford and his FBI Hostage Rescue Team are about to storm Buffalo Bill’s house.

However, when they burst into Buffalo Bill’s Illinois address, they find it empty. Instead, the sadistic killer is seen opening the door to an unsuspecting Clarice, who’s alone and thinks she’s at the home of a witness.

3 Clarice’s Tense Interactions With Hannibal

The greatest scenes in The Silence of the Lambs are Clarice’s interviews with Hannibal. Foster and Hopkins share impeccable chemistry as their characters’ strained, bizarre relationship evolves throughout the movie.

Clarice relies on Hannibal’s insights, but Hannibal is more interested in deconstructing her mind, which makes The Silence of the Lambs one of the quintessential psychological thrillers. Hannibal manages to wheedle out all of Clarice’s deepest, darkest secrets.

2 The Terrifying Night-Vision Climax

After being lured into the home of Buffalo Bill, Clarice realizes who she’s with when she spots a death’s head moth flying around the house. Clarice goes into the basement to free his hostage, but he shuts off the power, leaving her in darkness.

We see Clarice stumbling around in the pitch-black basement through Buffalo Bill’s night-vision goggles. The fact that Clarice can see nothing and Buffalo Bill can see everything makes this a thrilling climax for the movie. Clarice manages to get the drop on her would-be skinner when he cocks his gun, revealing his location.

1 The Haunting Final Scene

The best horror movie endings leave the audience feeling suitably unsettled on their way out of the theater. The Silence of the Lambs’ final scene still gives audiences the chills to this day.

An escaped Hannibal calls Clarice from a Bimini airport and tells her, “I’m having an old friend for dinner,” before ominously following his arch-nemesis Dr. Chilton into a crowd. The implication that Hannibal will kidnap and devour Chilton is more petrifying than anything Demme could show on-screen.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3465 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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