Mostly faithful to the equally weird and at times repugnant book, it’s a borderline insane movie that turns the murderous Lecter into ostensibly a hero and, while not going quite off the deep end as the novel, features one of the most gruesomely bonkers climactic scenes ever filmed for a mainstream motion picture. Two decades later, Hannibal, a top shelf, A-list Hollywood production directed by Ridley Scott and featuring Hopkins in his second portrayal of Lecter, remains a bizarre, flawed artifact. Less than two years later, the film version arrived in theaters (20 years ago this week, in fact) and received just as polarizing a response as Harris’ book. Lecter and wrote the novels, tried his best to kill off the public interest in Hannibal–if not Hannibal himself–at the height of the character’s fame? Because that appears to be almost exactly what Harris attempted to do with Hannibal, the third book featuring the erudite monster, which was published in 1999. So why did it seem like Thomas Harris, the reclusive author who created Dr. And Anthony Hopkins even earned an Oscar for playing the doctor The Silence of the Lambs, which itself went on to sweep the Academy Awards. Several of those projects were highly acclaimed by critics and tremendous hits with audiences. Hannibal Lecter–the forensic psychiatrist, cannibalistic serial killer, and pop culture icon featured in four novels, five movies, and a TV show–has been unstoppable.

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