With Foster and Hopkins winning Best Actress and Best Actor Academy Awards for their portrayal of the Harris characters, this dark and decidedly non-romantic 1991 Valentine's Day release brought to the screen one of the most compelling cinematic chess matches viewers and critics had ever seen. RELATED: 6 Lead Performances That Had Minimal Screen Time Audiences and critics continue to slide into the therapy chair time and time again.

With keen production techniques including actors speaking directly to the camera, director Jonathan Demme placed viewers in the hot seat with Hopkins' piercing eyes staring right through them as if in their own therapy session with the sadistic psychiatrist.

The film that swept the Oscars, winning five of its seven nominations, The Silence of the Lambs falls just short of being the best depiction of Lecter. Overly gory and stale, Hannibal maintains a narrative set forth by the books but remains a middle-of-the-road blip in the franchise's history. It provided audiences a solid cinematic reference point for the TV series later to come when the introduction of certain characters wove its way into the series. Ridley Scott's best efforts to continue the Lecter legacy weren't in vain. RELATED: 'Fantastic Beasts' and 9 Other Franchises Where Characters Were Recast Between Movies Moore nailed the West Virginia accent despite critics and audience members' low ratings. Starling is played by Julianne Moore, as Jodie Foster opting out due to disagreements with the direction of Starling's story, despite Hannibal remaining close to the book. The third book and final plotline in the Harris series finds Lecter post-escape living in Rome while Clarice Starling is reeling from a career-low point. With a tight timeline between the releases of Hannibal and Red Dragon, Hannibal had Anthony Hopkins working back-to-back Lecter scripts. Each fan will ship a different onscreen Hannibal and FBI agent combination, but in the end, only two triumphed over the rest. The Dino De Laurentiis Company had a hand in producing each screen version of the characters as they own partial rights to the Harris characters, with Dino and Martha carefully overseeing productions until their individual passings. RELATED: How to Watch Hannibal Lecter Movies and Series in Order Five movies and two TV series later, the characters from Harris's books have received a wide range of reception: from Oscar-winning portrayals, to onscreen adaptations fans would rather forget.

Throughout the decades, various filmmakers and actors have taken a crack at bringing the charismatic, sadistic villain and supporting characters to life. The book series, written by Thomas Harris, consists of four entries: Red Dragon (1981), The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal (1999), and Hannibal Rising (2006). Audiences love a good villain, and one of the tastiest literary and cinematic characters is Hannibal Lecter.

Books with hannibal lecter