History Awesome / TheSilenceOfTheLambs

* Clarice shooting Buffalo Bill while he was stalking her in the dark with nightvision goggles. She seems completly at his mercy, until he [[ClickHello pulls back the hammer on his revolver]], alerting her to his presence and intention and unloads her own service weapon and fatally shoots him despite having no visual target.

* Clarice shooting Buffalo Bill while he was stalking her in the dark.

* The first meeting between Lecter and Clarice. The polite banter. Clarice's unflinching answer about the embarrassing thing Miggs hissed at her. Lecter's professor-like tut-tut when Clarice forces the discussion onto that profiler questionnaire. Lecter's rude attempt to upset the rookie agent, and Clarice's hard retort. And then Lecter tells us about that Census taker who tried to test him: "I [[MemeticMutation ate his liver, with some fava beans and a nice chianti]]." In those ten minutes, ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' owned that Best Picture Oscar.

-->'''Lecter:''' You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.\\

--> Don't you hurt my dog!
--> Don't you MAKE ME HURT YOUR DOG!
* The fact that the film itself became one of only three (the others being ''Film/ItHappenedOneNight'' and ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'') to take home the Big Five Oscars; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay (Adapted).
** And it won all of those despite being released in February, while most other Oscar successes are usually released in November/December (much closer to the ceremony), and despite being (arguably) a horror movie, a genre that is usually ignored by the academy.

* It's not in the film, [[note]] Though it can be found in the DeletedScenes posted on the "Trivia" page [[/note]] only in the novel: Jack Crawford, while he's a good agent, can be ''extremely'' manipulative when he wants something, particularly when [[BlackAndGreyMorality using photographs of the crime scenes]] to get a reluctant person to help. The doctor at Johns Hopkins won't have any of it, and tells Crawford it's a "childish, bullying thing to do."
--> I was a battle surgeon, Mr. Crawford. Put your picture back in your pocket.
* Jonathan Demme has one of the finest directing moments of his career in the buildup to the climax. The scene keeps cutting between Buffalo Bill in his basement and the FBI setting up outside, they ring the bell, he heads to answer it...[[spoiler:and ''Clarice'' is at the door, having figured out his real location while the other agents got duped.]]
* Anthony Hopkins' performance as Lecter has gone down as one of the greatest villains in film history, and it still remains chilling to this day.
* A whole 26 years after the film, Jodie Foster finally played Clarice again in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc6ZDo9ViNA a sketch]] for ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert'', and absolutely nails every single nuance of her original performance as if she'd just done it yesterday.

* It's not in the film, only in the novel: Jack Crawford, while he's a good agent, can be ''extremely'' manipulative when he wants something, particularly when [[BlackAndGreyMorality using photographs of the crime scenes]] to get a reluctant person to help. The doctor at Johns Hopkins won't have any of it, and tells Crawford it's a "childish, bullying thing to do."

* The first meeting between Lecter and Clarice. The polite banter. Clarice's unflinching answer about the embarrassing thing Miggs hissed at her. Lecter's professor-like tut-tut when Clarice forces the discussion onto that profiler questionnaire. Lecter's rude attempt to upset the rookie agent, and Clarice's hard retort. And then Lecter tells us about that Census taker who tried to test him: "I [[MemeticMutation ate his liver, with some fava beans and a nice chianti]]." In those ten minutes, ''SilenceOfTheLambs'' owned that Best Picture Oscar.

* The film as a whole could be considered a CMOA for the horror genre, as it is the only horror film as of 2017 to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

* Anthony Hopkins' performance as Lecter has gone down in film history as one of the greatest villains in film history, and it still remains chilling to this day.

* The fact that the film itself became one of only three (the others being ''Film/ItHappenedOneNight'' and ''OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'') to take home the Big Five Oscars; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay (Adapted).

* Catherine manages to lure Buffalo Bill's poodle down into her prison, thus ensuring he can't kill her for fear she'd hurt the dog. In particular, the way she stands up to him, despite having been thrown in a whole, starved and tortured.

-> Don't you hurt my dog!
-> Don't you MAKE ME HURT YOUR DOG!

* Catherine manages to lure Buffalo Bill's poodle down into her prison, thus ensuring he can't kill her for fear she'd hurt the dog.

** And it won all that despite being released in February, while most other Oscar successes are usually released in November/December (much closer to the ceremony), and despite being (arguably) a horror movie, a genre that is usually ignored by the academy.

* The fact that the film itself became one of only three (the others being ''ItHappenedOneNight'' and ''OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'') to take home the Big Five Oscars; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay (Adapted).

-->'''Lecter''': You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.\\
'''Clarice''': Yes.\\
'''Lecter''': And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don't you? You think if Catherine lives, you won't wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs...\\
'''Clarice''' (in tears): I don't know. I don't know.\\
'''Lecter''' (closes his eyes: he ''knows'' Clarice has given up the deepest secret of herself): Thank you, Clarice. Thank you.
*** And then [[ButtMonkey Chilton]] interrupts, before Lecter can tell Clarice the name.

* Clarice shooting [[CompleteMonster Buffalo Bill]] while he was stalking her in the dark.

* Clarice shooting Buffalo Bill while he was stalking her in the dark.

* Clarice shooting Buffalo Bill while he was stalking her in the dark.