Now Playing Podcast Presents: The Hannibal Lecter Retrospective Series

Hannibal Lecter Series Episode 5

After Red Dragon’s success more Lecter films were guaranteed, and to keep with author Thomas Harris’ original vision this time the movie was not just based on one of his novels-the Hannibal Rising screenplay was written by Harris in conjunction with the new novel telling of Hannibal the Cannibal’s early years. Can this film provide a future for the series without Anthony Hopkins, and does Gaspard Ulliel’s Hannibal rise to the occasion? Listen to Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob’s final review in the Hannibal Lecter series to find out!

Hannibal Lecter Series Episode 4

Quickly after Hannibal hit theaters production began on yet another installment of the Hannibal Lecter franchise, and this time instead of looking forward to Harris writing another Hannibal story they looked backwards to Red Dragon, Harris’ first novel featuring the caged cannibal. Already made into a film in the 80’s, Manhunter, now the story is retold in an adaptation more faithful to the original novel and with Hopkins again reprising the role that he is best known for. With an all-star cast and director Brett Ratner at the helm, was this film a needed update or a desperate cash-grab? Listen to Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart’s review to find out!

Hannibal Lecter Series Episode 3

When Silence of the Lambs was received with critical acclaim and box office success, audiences waited with baited breath for the reunion of the cannibal and the agent – Hannibal and Clarice. But despite audience anticipation, author Thomas Harris did not complete the sequel novel Hannibal until 1999, and upon its release many of the talent associated with the original film declined to return. But with new director Ridley Scott, fresh off his Oscar for Gladiator, behind the camera and Hopkins returning to chew up the scenery and his victims, could this film live up to the last or is it too much for audiences to swallow? Listen to find out!

Hannibal Lecter Series Episode 2

It’s iconic. Fava beans and a nice Chianti. Quid pro quo. Goodbye Horses. Few thrillers have seeped into pop culture like The Silence of the Lambs. Based on Thomas Harris’s novel, the film united Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, and director Jonathan Demme to create a chilling crime story that not only captivated audiences but also swept the Academy Awards. As FBI trainee Clarice Starling hunts the serial killer Buffalo Bill, she turns to the brilliant and terrifying Dr. Hannibal Lecter for insight—sparking one of cinema’s most unforgettable psychological duels.

Continuing their Hannibal Lecter retrospective, Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie revisit this landmark film to see if it still deserves its legendary reputation. Listen to Now Playing Podcast and find out!

Before he was winning Oscars and dominating the silver screen, Hannibal Lecter returned to the page in Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs. In this second Lecter story, the brilliant but imprisoned doctor is enlisted to help an FBI trainee track down a killer who skins his victims—while Lecter quietly plots a gruesome escape of his own. Join Stuart as he revisits the novel that deepened Lecter’s legend, examining how Clarice Starling’s presence reshapes the dynamic with the infamous doctor and helped turn Harris’s cultured cannibal into one of fiction’s most compelling villains.

Prepare the Chianti and fava beans. Stuart is spending a month dining with author Thomas Harris and his most infamous creation—Dr. Hannibal Lecter. As a companion to our Hannibal Lecter movie retrospective, Stuart is cracking open the four novels that inspired the five films featuring the cultured cannibal.

The first course is Red Dragon, the 1981 crime novel that introduced Hannibal Lecter to the world. This chilling story of FBI profiler Will Graham hunting the serial killer known as the “Tooth Fairy” would later inspire two film adaptations: Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986) and Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon (2002).

Join Stuart as he gets inside Lecter’s mind and examines how Harris crafted the twisted relationship between the imprisoned doctor, the new murderer who idolizes him, and the investigator who once put Lecter behind bars.

Hannibal Lecter Series Episode 1

Before Anthony Hopkins was savoring fava beans and a nice Chianti, Hannibal Lecter first appeared on the big screen as “Hannibal Lector,” played by Brian Cox in Manhunter, the stylish 1986 thriller from Miami Vice creator Michael Mann.

When a brutal serial killer known as the “Tooth Fairy” begins murdering entire families, FBI profiler Will Graham is pulled out of retirement to track him down. To understand the mind of the killer, Graham turns to the one man who knows that darkness best—the imprisoned murderer he once captured, Hannibal the Cannibal.

Though the story would later be retold in The Silence of the Lambs era with Red Dragon, Manhunter initially failed at the box office before gaining a devoted following among Lecter fans. But does Mann’s neon-soaked thriller stand alongside the more famous films that followed? Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob kick off Now Playing Podcast’s Hannibal Lecter retrospective with their review of Manhunter.