No.22 says it all

Rating: Null/10 (21 August 2002)

A previously unheralded (though always very talented) Anthony Hopkins collaborates with Jonathan Demme and shares the spotlight with Jodie Foster, the finest female actor in Hollywood, to create a dark and unsettling masterpiece in this 1991 film about an FBI agent who is sent on a mission to find lady killer Buffalo Bill. The details of the plot are by now a celebrated part of film history. It is the way we are shown Clarice's (Jodie Foster) search for Buffalo Bill that sets this film apart from empty imitators of which it's sequel Hannibal is one.
Foster and Hopkins both won oscars for their performances and are superb. Jonathan Demme also won an oscar for some great direction, particularly of some of the film's more gory scenes. The film's conclusion is one of the greatest scenes in film history, it has been imitated many times since, most successfully in the Joel Schumacher film 8mm, though never quite equalled.

A far cry from the appalling Hannibal.