9 Smart Movies That Tricked Us Into Rooting For The Bad Guys

4. We Just Needed To Spend Time With Him - Hannibal In Hannibal

People revere Hannibal Lecter. That much is clear from the fact Anthony Hopkins won the Oscar for Best Actor for less than twenty minutes of screen time in The Silence Of The Lambs. But it's always been out of a fear of him; you can bet a fair few Academy voters were picking him just to ensure they didn't end up on the buffet at the after party. He's like an animal in the zoo - people are drawn to him out of curiosity, not adoration.

Now say whatever the he'll you want about Ridley Scott's Hannibal (and to this day people do), but that film managed to push him over to the other side; we spent so much time with him that, at points, we were properly on side. Now the main character, we spend a lot more time with him and get a taste of his sympathetic side; the relationship with Clarice (a character we easily relate to after Lambs) is amped up and creates a morally ambiguous code; he is unable to harm her, even when she jeopardises his safety.

It's really helped that he's put up against Mason Verger (played by Gary Oldman under obscene amounts of makeup), a child molester who Hannibal has already tortured once. Prompting the question of when does revenge go too far, he forces us to associate with Hannibal in a grim game of pick the worst psychopath.