The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Widely regarded as a landmark of psychological horror, the film earns near-universal admiration for its taut direction and the electric chemistry between its leads — though even at the time of release, a minority of critics felt that Clarice Starling gets swallowed whole by the monsters surrounding her, leaving Foster's compelling work stranded at the margins of her own film.