10 Great Movie Performances (No One Ever Talks About)

10. Ted Levine - The Silence Of The Lambs

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Considering it's one of just three movies in history to win the Big Five Academy Awards - that's Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay - it might seem odd to talk about any aspect of The Silence of the Lambs as underappreciated.

But people trip over themselves to praise the performances of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster so much - quite understandably, at least - that they seem to forget the film's third great piece of acting.

Ted Levine plays the supporting role of deranged serial killer Buffalo Bill, delivering an utterly bone-chilling performance which bafflingly received little praise from awards bodies and isn't much talked about today.

As much as Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter became impossibly iconic, Levine's work is equally great, without which Jonathan Demme's thriller wouldn't be nearly as viscerally unsettling.

His performance is so much more than the widely-parodied scene where Bill tucks in his junk in the mirror while listening to "Goodbye Horses," but that's the single image most people associate Levine with.

That Levine wasn't nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in a relatively soft year, where Jack Palance won the award for City Slickers no less, is nothing short of criminal.