Following an early career directing low-budget exploitation movies for producer Roger Corman, by the 1990s, Jonathan Demme was known best for making quirky comedies (Something Wild, Married to the Mob) and music documentaries (Stop Making Sense) - that is, until he signed on to adapt Thomas Harris' best-selling thriller The Silence of the Lambs. The resulting film - a sombre, enthralling nightmare vision of psychopathology - became a five-time Academy Award winner and made cannibal mastermind Hannibal Lecter a household name. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, The Accused) races against time to stop a serial killer, nicknamed "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine, Heat), before he kills again. To solve the case, she risks her own sanity by consulting with malevolent psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, Nixon).