The Silence of the Lambs Reviews
Top CriticAn accomplished, effective, grisly, and exceptionally sick slasher film that I can't with any conscience recommend, because the purposes to which it places its considerable ingenuity are ultimately rather foul.
Foster's character, who is appealing, is dwarfed by the monsters she is after. I'd rather see her work on another case.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Movieline
Director Jonathan Demme and actors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins expend considerable talent on a film that remains repellent and stubbornly unilluminating.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
...the rare scary movie that allows its actors room to circle and brush lightly against on another, generating cool sparks.
Full Review | Original Score: A
The popularity of Jonathan Demme's movie is likely to last as long as there is a market for being scared.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
There is little doubt that the most memorable aspect of The Silence of the Lambs is Anthony Hopkins' incomparable performance as Lecter.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Radio Times
This multi-Oscar-winning classic, adapted from Thomas Harris's bestseller, was responsible for giving cinematic serial killers a better image, thanks to Anthony Hopkins's enthralling portrayal of Hannibal Lecter.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
FEARnet
Not since The Exorcist had a horror flick been this applauded! It was almost as if ... "horror" were its own legitimate genre!
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Dark Horizons
Not a second of this two-hour flick, which redefined the term 'thriller' and spawned a host of clones, I can find error with.
Flipside Movie Emporium
Terrifying and inescapable. A perfect meditation on the nature of fear and courage, featuring two of the greatest performances ever put on film.
| Original Score: 5/5
The juiciest part is Hopkins,' and he makes the most of it. Helped by some highly dramatic lighting, actor makes the role the personification of brilliant, hypnotic evil, and the screen jolts with electricity whenever he is on.
rec.arts.movies.reviews
This is one heavy thriller.
Full Review
| Original Score: high +2 out of -4..+4
eFilmCritic.com
Demme has the control of a born master of suspense.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Empire Magazine
A first unmissable, then enduring, but always unmissable classic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
ColeSmithey.com
[VIDEO ESSAY] "Hannibal the Cannibal" is the ultimate anti-hero.
Full Review
| Original Score: A+
Common Sense Media
Thriller that made the serial killer a superstar.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Combustible Celluloid
The Academy also rightly awarded Best Actress to Foster for being the heart and soul of the piece.
Understandably, much has been made of Hopkins' hypnotic Lecter, but the laurels must go to Levine's killer, admirably devoid of camp overstatement, and to Foster, who evokes a vulnerable but pragmatic intelligence.
Flick Filosopher
The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological thriller of the highest order, and well deserving of the unusual Oscar nod for Best Picture, never before bestowed upon a film like this.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
AboutFilm.com
No common follow-the-clues, get-the-bad-guy movie
Full Review
| Original Score: A+
