Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best

21. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

The Silence of the Lambs remains the only straight-up thriller movie to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, and even almost three decades on, its win still stands as an oddity, especially as the film was released in February and had to maintain its awards momentum for basically an entire year.

Still, the late Jonathan Demme's legendary genre film was a worthy winner without question, immediately entering the pop-culture lexicon thanks to its remarkable script and Anthony Hopkins' spine-tingling, Oscar-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter.

The fascinating psychological undercurrent, the examination of gender roles and Jodie Forster's courageous central turn no doubt helped push it to become one of just three movies to win the "Big Five" at the Oscars, and allow it to endure as a classic genre staple today.