10 Movie Characters That Got Happy Endings They Did Not Deserve
2. Hannibal Lecter - Hannibal
When Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) was introduced in The Silence of the Lambs, it seemed as though any kind of happy ending for him was out of reach. He had been caught, arrested, and incarcerated for his cannibalistic crimes, and appeared destined to spend the rest of his days behind bars.
That however, was not the case. The Silence of the Lambs was never truly about Hannibal, he was merely asked for advice with regard to Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), a former patient of his, but by the end of the film he had successfully escaped.
The film's sequel, Hannibal, moved the story forward ten years, with the monster still at large and even taunting Julianne Moore's Clarice Starling with letters. He was living a happy life in Italy, and even when the attention of the FBI came down on him, he wasn't particularly affected.
The last audiences saw of Hannibal, after he brutally murdered the man who was on his trail, and evading Starling herself, he was on a plane flying toward freedom. He was once where he belonged, but after his escape, the man who made it onto the FBI's ten most wanted list escaped justice scot-free.