The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee, is training in the woods of Quantico, Virginia, when she receives a call that interrupts her routine. Jack Crawford, head of the Behavioral Science Unit, summons her to his office and gives her an unusual assignment: to visit Hannibal Lecter, a former forensic psychiatrist of exceptional intelligence who is serving a sentence for serial murder and cannibalism. Officially, Clarice is to conduct a psychological study of the prisoner. Crawford, however, hopes the conversations will give him leads to catch a killer the police have yet to track down. The young agent will have to hold her own against a man who controls every word he utters. Directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster, the film centers on that first contact between an agent in training and the criminal who is most difficult to read.