Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
84
(17 sources)
84
(17 sources)
-
100
Variety
A mesmerizing thriller that will grip audiences from first scene to last. Read Full Review » -
100
San Francisco Chronicle
The interplay between Starling and Lector as they share an indefinable, dark understanding gives the film its unforgettable and unsettling power. [14 February 1991, Daily Notebook, p.E1] Read Full Review » -
100
Rolling Stone
The superbly crafted suspense thriller…slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror. Read Full Review » -
100
USA Today
A movie with this kind of haunting power comes along only once every decade or so. [20 February 1991, Life, p.11D] Read Full Review » -
100
Los Angeles Times
Hopkins' insinuating performance puts him right up there with the screen's great bogymen. [13 February 1991, Calendar, p.F-1} Read Full Review » -
100
Washington Post
Delicious with foreboding, a masterly suspense thriller that toys with our anticipation like a well-fed cat. Read Full Review » -
97
Mr. Showbiz
Though the film's subject matter is grisly, the electricity between Foster and Hopkins during their prison tête-à-têtes could power every maximum-security prison in this country. Read Full Review » -
90
The New York Times
All sorts of macabre things have gone on, and are still going on just offscreen, in Jonahan Demme's swift, witty new suspence thriller.[14 February 1991] Read Full Review » -
90
TV Guide
Hopkins plays the cannibalistic doctor with a quiet, controlled erudition, lacing his performance with moments of black humor. His Lecter is a sort of satanic Sherlock Holmes whose spasms of violence are all the more terrifying because they erupt from beneath such an intelligent and refined mask. Read Full Review » -
90
Washington Post
A smart, restrained entertainment, it doesn't splash around in blood and hysteria. It doesn't have to. Read Full Review » -
89
-
88
Chicago Sun-Times
It has been a good long while since I have felt the presence of Evil so manifestly demonstrated as in the first appearance of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Read Full Review » -
88
ReelViews
Chilling and creepy, and there's no denying that the most celebrated aspect of the film -- the Clarice/Hannibal connection -- could not have been accomplished with greater skill. Read Full Review » -
70
Chicago Reader
An 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. Read Full Review » -
70
The New Republic
Demme's pacing is tight throughout, marred only by some low-angle close-ups of the cannibal that are right out of old Vincent Price thrillers. [Feb 18, 1991] Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Tribune
Billed as one of the most frightening, depraved films ever made. Would that it were so. Instead, this is a case of much ado about nothing. [15 February 1991, Friday, p.C] Read Full Review » -
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The plot is squeezed dry in this bloody Valentine from Hollywood and becomes annoyingly predictable. Thriller stumbles on its own success Read Full Review »
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