The Silence of The Lambs (film) - Release - Accolades

Accolades

The film won the Big Five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Demme), Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally), making it only the third film in history accomplish that feat. It was also nominated for Best Sound (Tom Fleischman and Christopher Newman) and Best Film Editing, but lost to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and JFK, respectively.

Other awards include best picture from the National Board of Review, CHI Awards and PEO Awards. Demme won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The film was nominated for the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It was also nominated as best film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards. Screenwriter Ted Tally received an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. The film was awarded Best Horror Film of the Year during the 2nd Horror Hall of Fame telecast, with Vincent Price presenting the award to the film's executive producer Gary Goetzman.

In 1998, the film was listed as one of the 100 greatest movies in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. In 2006, at the Key Art Awards, the original poster for The Silence of the Lambs was named best film poster "of the past 35 years".

The Silence of the Lambs placed seventh on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for Lecter's infamous escape scene. The 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 primetime special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People Magazine. Silence of the Lambs was selected as the #1 Best Suspense/Thriller and Dr. Hannibal Lecter was selected as the #4 Greatest Film Character.

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies — #65
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills — #5
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Hannibal Lecter — #1 Villain
  • Clarice Starling — #6 Hero
  • "Buffalo Bill" (Jame Gumb) — Nominated Villain
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." — #21
  • "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner." — Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores — Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) — #74