[The Silence of the Lambs] stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee who is hunting a serial killer named "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine), who skins his female victims. To catch him, she seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. ...
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 86 out of 100, based on 20 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] ...
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.