Silence of the Lambs, The

Variety Staff [not credited]

A mesmerizing thriller that will grip audiences from first scene to last.

San Francisco Chronicle Judy Stone

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]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The superbly crafted suspense thriller…slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

A movie with this kind of haunting power comes along only once every decade or so. [20 February 1991, Life, p.11D]

Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson

Hopkins' insinuating performance puts him right up there with the screen's great bogymen. [13 February 1991, Calendar, p.F-1}

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Delicious with foreboding, a masterly suspense thriller that toys with our anticipation like a well-fed cat.

Mr. Showbiz Jean Oppenheimer

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.

The New York Times Vincent Canby

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]

TV Guide Staff [not credited]

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A smart, restrained entertainment, it doesn't splash around in blood and hysteria. It doesn't have to.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

At long, long last: the real thing.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

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.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

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]

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

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]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

The plot is squeezed dry in this bloody Valentine from Hollywood and becomes annoyingly predictable. Thriller stumbles on its own success