The Silence of the Lambs Jonathan Demme

Box office

The Silence of the Lambs was released on February 14, 1991, grossing almost $14 million from 1,497 theaters over the 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, placing at number one at the US box office. It remained at number one for five weeks.[59]

The film opened at the Odeon Leicester Square in London in June 1991 and grossed £290,936 in its opening week, which distributor Rank claimed was a world record opening week from one theatre.[60] The following week, it expanded to 281 screens and grossed £4,260,472 for the week, a UK record.[61]

The film grossed $131 million in the United States and Canada with a total worldwide gross of $273 million.[59] It was the fourth-highest grossing film of 1991 in North America and the fifth-highest-grossing film worldwide.[62]

Critical response

The Silence of the Lambs was a sleeper hit that gradually gained widespread success and critical acclaim.[63] Foster, Hopkins, and Levine garnered much acclaim for their performances. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of 153 film critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Jonathan Demme's smart, taut thriller teeters on the edge between psychological study and all-out horror, and benefits greatly from stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster."[64] Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 19 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[65] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[66]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, specifically mentioned the "terrifying qualities" of Hannibal Lecter.[67] Ebert later added the film to his list of The Great Movies, recognizing the film as a "horror masterpiece" alongside such classics as Nosferatu, Psycho, and Halloween.[68] However, the film is also notable for being one of two multi-Academy Award winners (the other being Unforgiven) to get a bad review from Ebert's colleague, Gene Siskel. Writing for Chicago Tribune, Siskel said, "Foster's character, who is appealing, is dwarfed by the monsters she is after. I'd rather see her work on another case."[69]

Accolades

The film won the Big Five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Demme), Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally), making it only the third film in history to accomplish that feat.[70] It was also nominated for Best Sound (Tom Fleischman and Christopher Newman) and Best Film Editing, but lost to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and JFK, respectively.[71]

Other awards include Best Film by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, CHI Awards and PEO Awards. Demme won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival[72] and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. It was also nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Film. Screenwriter Ted Tally received an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. The film was awarded Best Horror Film of the Year during the 2nd Horror Hall of Fame telecast, with Vincent Price presenting the award to the film's executive producer Gary Goetzman.[73]

In 1998, the film was listed as one of the 100 greatest films in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute.[74] In 2006, at the Key Art Awards, the original poster for The Silence of the Lambs was named best film poster "of the past 35 years".[75] The Silence of the Lambs placed seventh on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments for Lecter's escape scene. The American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) the number one film villain of all time[76] and Clarice Starling (as portrayed by Foster) the sixth-greatest film hero of all time.[76] In 2011, ABC aired a prime-time special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, that counted down the best films chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People magazine. The Silence of the Lambs was selected as the best suspense/thriller and Dr. Hannibal Lecter was selected as the fourth-greatest film character.

The film and its characters have appeared in the following AFI "100 Years" lists:

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – No. 65
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – No. 5
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
  • Clarice Starling – No. 6 Hero
  • Hannibal Lecter – No. 1 Villain
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." – No. 21
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 74

In 2015, Entertainment Weekly's 25th anniversary year, it included The Silence of the Lambs in its list of the 25 best movies made since the magazine's beginning.[77]

Home media

The film was released on VHS in October 1991 by Orion Home Video. It was the most rented video in the United States upon release.[80] It was released on DVD on March 6, 2001 by MGM Home Entertainment in both Widescreen (1.85:1) and Full Screen (1.33:1) versions.[81] The Criterion Collection, which had released the film on LaserDisc in 1994, released a DVD special edition in 1998, and later a Blu-Ray edition in 2018.[82]