10 Movies That Made You Root For Monsters

Despite Anthony Hopkins winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs he was actually only on screen for less than 20 minutes in total. He was more a fearsome secondary character that we don’t learn all that much about apart from him being rather fond of human flesh.

But in Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, the cannibal psychiatrist was front and centre so we really got to know the crazy, old flesh-eating bastard. We learn he’s capable of romantic love (however twisted) through his relationship with Clarice even going so far to chop off his own hand rather than hers to escape. That’s true love right there.

It helps that Hannibal’s victims – corrupt Italian detective Rinaldo Pazzi, wealthy child molester Mason Verger and sleazy attorney general Paul Krendler – aren’t great people but even though we see Lecter committing some awful acts like disembowelment and sautéing human brains, he’s so charming and erudite about it that we just want to see him escape the law and get the girl even if that means more people end up washed down a nice Chianti.