The Silence of the Lambs (film) American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) the number one film villain of all time and Clarice Starling (as portrayed by Foster) the sixth-greatest film hero of all time. In 2011, ABC aired a prime-time special, "", that counted down the best films chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and "People" magazine. "The Silence of the Lambs" was selected as the 1 Best Suspense/Thriller and Dr. Hannibal Lecter was selected as the 4 Greatest Film Character. The film and its characters have appeared in the following AFI "100 Years" lists: In
Jodie Foster box office hits, earning over $140 and $183 million respectively. Foster's first project for Egg Pictures, "Nell", was released in December 1994. In addition to acting as its producer, she starred in the title role as a woman who grew up isolated in the Appalachian Mountains and speaks her own invented language. It was based on Mark Handley's play "Idioglossia", which interested Foster for its theme of "otherness", and because she "loved this idea of a woman who defies categorization, a creature who is labeled and categorized by people based on their own problems and their own prejudices and what