Hannibal (film) Hannibal (film) Hannibal is a 2001 American psychological horror thriller film directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from Thomas Harris's 1999 novel of the same name. It is the sequel to the 1991 Academy Award–winning film "The Silence of the Lambs" in which Anthony Hopkins returns to his role as the serial killer, Hannibal Lecter. Julianne Moore co-stars, in the role first held by Jodie Foster, as FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling. The film had a difficult and occasionally troubling pre-production history. When the novel was published in 1999, "The Silence of the Lambs" director Jonathan Demme, screenwriter Ted Tally, and
Clarice Starling opens fire towards the sound, killing him. Weeks later, Lecter writes Starling a letter from a hotel room somewhere in Detroit asking her if the lambs have stopped screaming. The final scene of the novel has Starling sleeping peacefully at a friend's vacation house at the Maryland seashore. In "Hannibal", Starling is in her early thirties and a full-fledged FBI agent, although her career has been held back by Paul Krendler, a Department of Justice official who resents her for rejecting his sexual advances. She takes part in a bungled drug raid, in which she returns fire after a drug