Movie #15

15. The Silence of the Lambs

Young FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned to help find a missing woman to save her from a psychopathic serial killer who skins his victims. Clarice attempts to gain a better insight into the twisted mind of the killer by talking to another psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who used to be a respected psychiatrist. FBI agent Jack Crawford believes that Lecter who is also a very powerful and clever mind manipulator have the answers to their questions to help locate the killer. Clarice must first try and gain Lecter's confidence before he is to give away any information, and in order to do that, she must feed his morbid curiosity with details about her own complicated life.

This is up at #15 solely because of the acting, which was brilliant. For a psychological thriller such as this one to work, the characters have to really sell the story, which Jodi Foster and Anthony Hopkind do a fantastic job of. I think the fact that Lecter uses a ton of riddles is why the film messes with your mind. And I'm not just talking about the ones that Clarice figures out...For example, Lecter describes one of his sketches as "The Duomo, seen from the Belvedere," as a reference to Buffalo Bill's hometown of Belvedere, Ohio, and stresses "Simplicity" not only as an urging to keep things simple, but as a reference to the dress company Simplicity.

This was originally a sequel to Manhunter, which flopped so badly that the producer gave the rights to Silence of the Lambs to Orion for free (D'oh!)

The Silence of the Lambs won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Foster) and Best Actor (Hopkins.) Note that Hopkins 16 minutes of on-screen time was the shortest to ever earn a leading actor Oscar.

And a little added note for all you CSI criminology types: Buffalo Bill is actually a hybrid of three serial killers: Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, and Gary Heidnick, and Hannibal Lecter is based on Albert Fish.