The Silence of the Lambs

The superbly crafted suspense thriller…slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror. more

The interplay between Starling and Lector as they share an indefinable, dark understanding gives the film its unforgettable and unsettling power.

A mesmerizing thriller that will grip audiences from first scene to last. more

Delicious with foreboding, a masterly suspense thriller that toys with our anticipation like a well-fed cat. more

Though the film's subject matter is grisly, the electricity between Foster and Hopkins during their prison tête-à-têtes could power every maximum-security prison in this country. more

Hopkins plays the cannibalistic doctor with a quiet, controlled erudition, lacing his performance with moments of black humor. His Lecter is a sort of satanic Sherlock Holmes whose spasms of violence are all the more terrifying because they erupt from beneath such an intelligent and refined mask. more

A smart, restrained entertainment, it doesn't splash around in blood and hysteria. It doesn't have to. more

At long, long last: the real thing. more

It has been a good long while since I have felt the presence of Evil so manifestly demonstrated as in the first appearance of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. more

Chilling and creepy, and there's no denying that the most celebrated aspect of the film -- the Clarice/Hannibal connection -- could not have been accomplished with greater skill. more

Jonathan Demme's frightening masterpiece, The Silence of the Lambs is worth the hype... yes, it took me almost 20 years to see it, not sure how that happened but anyway... This is the role that defined Anthony Hopkins to the American audience, and rightfully so: he's so normal that imaging him as a psychotic killer is the most terrifying part, as a Best Actor Oscar for a mere 16 minutes of screen time might suggest. The magic of this portrayal is in the script, however, as we are scared of Dr. Lechter well before we actually meet him. In true Hitchcock-ian fashion, we have to imagine the... more

A great movie that almost anyone can enjoy. It is essentially one of the best modern attempts at analyzing evil. The cast is great. Buffalo Bill has always been one of the shining moments in the film for me, due to the fact that he is an ensemble of everything most Americans feared at the time (Homosexuality, Neo-Nazism, Transvestite, etc). I just find it to be hilarious, yet hauntingly accurate. The storytelling is flawless and everything works well together. I think it's the most legitimate attempts from the horror genre, being really the only one to win a boatload of awards and still be... more

After years of waiting to see it, finally Silence of the Lambs lives up to the hype as one of the most taut, suspenseful, frightening and disturbing psychological thrillers I have ever seen. A film that doesn't merely scare you but disturbs the mind in a way that few films can, Psycho being one of them. Although only given 16 mins of screen time, Hopkins steals the show as Hannibal Lecter who is hands down the greatest screen villian of all time. I found that his greatness as a villian came through his power over the mind, his peircing ability to get inside our heads, to understand a... more

Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Dr Hannibal Lecter is amazing. He is one of the great villains in movies. I watched it for the third time eleven years after it was made, and the movie still keeps you riveted to your seat. What is weird is that even though Lecter is a serial killer, the movie goes to great lengths to show us the similarities between Starling and Lecter, and we don't hate Lecter, but we hate 'Buffalo Bill'. And the line at the end of the movie - Lecter is having Dr. Chilton over for dinner. more

Foster and Hopkins give star performances. Levine is creepy as Buffalo Bill. But, this movie simply did not impress me as much as the other two movies to hold the honor of winning the Oscar big five awards. The movie didn't give me a sense of release, a sense of "Oh Wow" when Foster finds her way to Buffalo Bill's house independent of her boss at the FBI. I didn't understand the prevalence of close up shots of the actors' faces. There are a lot of foreheads half cut off in this movie. I guess it heighten the suspense a bit to see the sweat and muscle twitches in the characters' faces. But... more

Pulp entertainment of the highest order, "The Silence of The Lambs" is terrific filmmaking. Entertaining, suspenseful and more than a bit hokey (albeit in just the right places), "Silence" at its core is a "B" movie thriller given an "A"-level film treatment. Fine direction, a crackling plot, iconic characterizations, perfect casting and superlative performances all adds up to a five-star film (out of five) that is worth owning for any self-respecting horror/suspense fan. Unfortunately, MGM's "Silence" Blu-Ray debut is sure to disappoint, as it looks strikingly similar to a finely... more