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Silence of the lambs is the award-winning 1991 psychological thriller based on the book by Thomas Harris, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. It tells the story of Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster), a young FBI trainee, who is asked to seek advice from the imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) in the hope that will make them catch another serial killer named Buffalo Bill.

Lecter seems quite taken with Clarice, although initially he is a little reluctant to help her. He does tell her a riddle about a former patient of his that leads to Clarice finding a severed head of one of the victims of Buffalo Bill. They then make a deal that if Lecter reads the report on Buffalo Bill and helps the FBI catch him, he will be transferred to a nicer prison. However, Lecter seems more interested in finding out more about Clarice. He offers to provide more insights into Buffalo Bill in exchange for stories about Clarice's troubled childhood.

Clarice confronts Lecter with some false information he has given, but once again Lecter is more interested in learning about her childhood. She ends up telling him about her arrival at a relative's farm, and the horror of discovering their lamb slaughterhouse and her fruitless attempts at rescuing the lambs. She admits that to this day she sometimes can still hear those lambs screaming. Lecter gives her back the case file and Clarice is escorted out of the building. Hours later, Lecter escapes from his cell, attacking his two guards.

Clarice analyzes Lecter's annotations and realizes that Buffalo Bill's first victim knew him in real life before he killed her. She then travels to the victim's hometown and discovers she was a tailor and has dresses with templates identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's victims. Realizing that Buffalo Bill is a tailor fashioning a suit of real skin, she telephones her boss, who is already on his way to make an arrest, of course, for the wrong person.

While interviewing people in the little town, Clarice knocks on the door of a house of someone, whom she soon realizes is actually Buffalo Bill. She draws her weapon just as he disappears into his basement. Starling pursues him, discovering a screaming girl in the dry well just before the lights in the basement go out, leaving her in complete darkness. He stalks Starling in the dark with night vision goggles and prepares to shoot her, but Clarice beats him to it.

Even though this movie looks a little dated, it is still one of my favorite thrillers of all time. This movie tells a great story, and the entire time it is both captivating and suspenseful. I think this might possibly be one of Jodie Foster's greatest roles ever. Just in case you are one of those few people who have never seen Silence of the Lambs, go check it out, I am sure you will enjoy it.

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