Ranking Every Hannibal Adaptation Worst To Best

The Hannibal Lecter franchise is one of the most renowned to feature a cannibalistic villain audiences can't help but love. Most fans found the franchise thanks to the 1988 film, The Silence of the Lambs, but long before that movie was made, the first book hit store shelves and started it all.

The first book in the series to feature the tales of Hannibal Lecter was written by Thomas Harris, titled Red Dragon and it was published back in 1981. Since that time, there have been three additional books published, which have been followed by a number of movies and a televisions series.

While there have only been a total of four novels about the serial killer fans can't help but love, there have been five feature-length films and a television series, which has run for three seasons by the end of 2018.

Ranking these adaptations may be subjective, but each one is considered based upon the source material and the manner in which is was adapted. Overall, the Hannibal franchise has produced some of the best media products to hit television and movie theaters in decades, but not all Hannibal adaptations are created equally... some were fantastic, which others... not so much.

Hannibal Rising is the fifth film in the franchise and was based on Harris' 2006 novel of the same name. The film details the life story of Hannibal Lecter and how he became the man we all know him to be: a cannibalistic serial killer.

Nobody is born a monster — they are made, and this film shows exactly how a young boy who survived the Nazi invasion of Lithuania during World War II went on to become a sadistic killing machine. Hannibal and his sister barely survived an explosion that killed the rest of their family, but they managed to endure for a little while before Hannibal's true origin story began.

In many ways, this is a revenge tale as much as it is a depiction of the titular character's devolution into the madness of cannibalism. Hannibal is played by Gaspard Ulliel whom critics agreed did the role justice. Unfortunately, the film failed to achieve widespread critical acclaim despite his performance, and it was the final film to be made from the novels prior to the development of the television series

Overall, this film wasn't particularly bad... but it wasn't particularly good either. The book handled the characters better in a more refined way, which is often an issue when adapting a novel into a film. If you want to learn about Hannibal Lecter's early days, it may be best to stick to the printed word, but a true completionist of the Hannibal franchise shouldn't pass this one by just because of its poor showing at the box office.