The Silence of the Lambs

An FBI trainee is sent to interview an imprisoned psychiatrist to build a profile of an active killer.

Demme's technique is the reason it is a horror film rather than a thriller. Almost every conversation is shot in direct address, with the actors looking down the lens, so the audience is placed exactly where Clarice is and Lecter speaks to you.

Foster plays her as small, working-class and constantly assessed by men, and the film keeps putting her in rooms where she is the only woman and shorter than everybody.

Hopkins is on screen for about sixteen minutes and won the Academy Award for it.

It swept the big five, which only two other films have done.

The Buffalo Bill characterisation drew sustained criticism from trans groups at the time, and Demme, to his credit, engaged with it publicly rather than dismissing it.