10 Best Movie Character Introductions Of All Time

"Stay away from the glass, don’t get close to him". Those are instructions more appropriate for visitors to the raptor enclosure at Jurassic Park than an FBI agent about to visit a patient at a facility for the criminally insane. It fills the viewer with dread about Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter, long before they clap eyes on him.

The fact they keep him locked away in the darkest depths of the hospital only adds to the audience's unease, and Clarice Starling's (Jodie Foster) as she slowly makes her way along that corridor to his cell.

There's Lecter standing bolt upright and he greets her with a simple "good morning". So begins one of the most fascinating and complex relationships in movie history.

After all that build-up, Hannibal catches the viewer off guard by coming across as perceptive, articulate, polite and even charming, but with a certain madness behind his eyes that tells you Doctor Chilton's warning was entirely justified.

Doctor Lecter's debut is unforgettable, expertly paced, acted and written, with enough substance to keep film scholars and budding psychoanalysts busy for years to come.