X

Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

EHOWA

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Virtually Existing

Quotes

Hannibal Lecter: I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner.

See more...

Mistakes

At Chicago, when Crawford and his team are about to break in to the empty house, the red ribbon on the flower box covers both the lid and the box when the agent takes it out of his car. When he rings the bell, the ribbon only covers the lid. See more...

Trivia

At one point Brain Cox was asked to reprise his role as Hannibal Lecter but turned it down because he didn't do sequels. See more...

Picture

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

15 biggest mistakes in Titanic

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - 19 corrections

Directed by Jonathan Demme, starring Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald (add more)

Genres: Crime, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Pictures
Quotes
Corrections
Questions
Submit
Author Thomas Harris has never watched the film because he's afraid that it'll influence his writing. [This is not true. Harris stated that he saw it when it was released and was very pleased with the movie.]
Edit Corrected by White Lock
When the scientists identify the moth, they correctly identify it as coming from Asia. When Crawford tell Clarice about them identifying Jame gumb, he says that Gumb had imported caterpillars from Surinam. Surinam is in South America. [Crawford never says the butterfly found in the woman's throat was from Surinam. Gumb likely imported eggs from a number of different countries.]
Edit
During the scene in the cage after Hannibal has handcuffed Sgt. Boyle, Hannibal kicks the cage door in the oncoming direction of Sgt. Petrie from a seated position. Exactly one second later, he is on his feet and attacking Sgt. Petrie from the same angle from which he kicked the door closed. It would then make sense that the door would still be closed since Petrie made no attempt to enter the cage. However, the cage door is now open to its original position when Hannibal starts attacking Sgt. Petrie. [Watch it again: moments after the door hits Sgt. Pembry [not Petrie], he pushes it back. This explains why the door is open.]
Edit Time
The "Memphis" airport, where Lector meets the Senator, is not Memphis, it is actually Lambert airport in St. Louis. The giveaway is the large neon "McDonnell Douglas" sign visible as the plane lands. [Why is this a giveaway? I have no idea of the significance of a "McDonnell Douglas" sign, and why there would not be one in Memphis as opposed to St. Louis. A typical moviegoer would never realize this as a mistake, as it seems gto rely on encyclopedic knowledge of the signage for a US Airports.]
Edit
In the scene where Clarice Starling has to turn over her gun and ammo, before visiting the caged Dr. Lecter, it is clearly visible that one of the bullets in the speedloader has been dropped: the nose is completely disformed. I wouldn't advise anyone to shoot such a bullet... [Character mistake. Clarice should have checked her ammunition better, but she didn't. Everyone, no matter how good they are, has little slip-ups now and again.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall Time
When Hannibal chains one guard to the bars, he attacks the other one, presumably biting his tongue out. However when the guard falls to the ground it shows blood on his face, yet no bite marks, or missing skin. He also opens his mouth to scream and you can see that his tongue is completely intact and unharmed. What the heck did Hannibal bite? [Hannibal did not bite out the guard's tongue. He bit the side of the mouth, on the cheek. There is blood and also you can see the skin is missing as you can see the flesh under it.]
Edit
When the scientists in the museum cut open the cocoon, they aren't wearing gloves, even though it's from the throat of a murder victim. [At no time does Clarice tell them that - she just asks them to identify the specimen. As far as they are concerned there is no need to wear gloves.]
Edit
How the heck did Hannibal get ahold of the pen during his release from the mental hospital ? It was at least 4 feet away from him; he was bound and had a face plate over his mouth. Not only did he get the pen but somehow he got the internal portion of it which would have required freedom of movement to remove. This must be a mistake because aside from telekinesis, it should have been impossible. [We see Chilton leave the pen on the bed, then head for the exit to the cell, forgetting to pick it up, which is hardly implausible, given that he's rather agitated at the time. Barney then releases Hannibal, who simply picks the pen up and conceals it once his restraints have been removed.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
Right after Hannibal attacks the ambulance crew, we see a nurse drop a telephone and sprint down a hospital corridor. Who the heck is that supposed to be? If she is the triage nurse in the emergency ward preparing for the ambulance, where is her clip-board or ANY paper to make note of what the paramedic is saying? And why is she using a pay-phone so far away from everything? And WHERE is she going? If there is any problem, she has a telephone in her hand to call the police. [A nurse? Total rubbish - that's clearly Ardelia, Clarice's fellow trainee agent - you can even make out the "FBI" on her shirt. Obviously somebody, probably Jack Crawford, has called to inform Clarice of Lecter's escape - Ardelia came to the phone, and is now running like hell to warn Clarice that a mass murderer with an interest in her is on the loose. She can be seen wearing the same distinctive cardigan in the next scene with Clarice.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Clarice is in Buffalo Bill's house, Bill moves his fingers twice before cocking the gun and attempting to shoot her. [I believe he was lining up the gun to shoot her. Then, he cocked the gun and attempted to fire. However, Clarice heard him cock the gun behind her, and she fired in the direction of the sound and shot him several times.]
Edit Time
During the autopsy of the first found body, one of the doctors is taking photographs of every little thing. When Clarice pulls the cocoon out of the corpse's mouth, she puts it into a glass container and the mortician goes about his business, and no pictures are taken of the cocoon. Of all things, that cocoon would have been photographed every which way, especially in such a high profile murder case. [Probably not. Pictures were taken of the girl's body, because the body was most likely not going to be accessible after that point. The girl's family would probably be contacted and the body transferred to them for a funeral (if desired) and a burial. However, the cocoon was being preserved for further study so it would be available as needed. Why photograph something that will be catalogued anyway?]
Edit
Jodie Foster has very blue eyes. When they flashback to her childhood, when she is crossing the lawn to greet her father, the girl playing the young Clarice has dark eyes. [No, actually the young Clarice has blue eyes. They just look darker sometimes, probably because of lighting. As an example, look at the young Clarice during the funeral scene. The actress' eyes are blue in this scene.]
Edit Time
In the scene where Clarice has arrived at the hospital for the second time, it is raining. She runs to Barney, who is already waiting for her. She was in the rain for a total of about 3 seconds, so how is her hair so wet in the next scene, where she is sitting on the floor talking to Dr. Lecter? [We don't know how long she had to drive, if she stopped somewhere before arriving at the hospital or how long it had been raining. Her hair could be already wet when she came out of her car. We don't see this because of the rain.]
Edit Time
Near the end of Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster has trouble seeing in the dark room, and the Buffalo Bill uses night vision to see her. Yet after he is killed, she is able to see him fine, even though no light switch is flicked on. How can she see him? [I believe she fires more than once and one of her bullets breaks one of the painted basement windows letting in a little light.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
In the scene where Jodie Foster leaves the mental hospital for the first time, you see two men wearing white clothes holding a man between themselves. In the next shot, the man is gone and the two men with white clothes are walking casually. What happened to the man that was evidently a mental-patient? [The two men escorting a pacient are wearing police uniforms and ARE NOT the same two men seen seconds later.]
Edit Corrected by cinecena
When Dr. Lecter was introduced to the police in Tenn., their names were Sgts. Boyle and Petrie.  When he's escaped from his cell, he said, " Ready when you are Sgt. Pembry".  That name is repeated later when Sgt. Tate says "It's Jim Pembry, now talk to him". Someone should zoom in on his name tag, to see what his name really is. [Sgt. Patrick (not "Petrie") and Sgt. Pembry are two entirely different persons. Pembry is much younger than Patrick. Further evidence can be found in the end credits, which lists the actors in order of appearance: Sgt. Boyle is listed way before than Sgt. Pembry.]
Edit Corrected by cinecena
In the scene where Clarice Starling phones Crawford to tell him she knows the identity of the man holding the Senator's daughter, Crawford is on a plane to Chicago. Starling says she'll meet him there, but Crawford stops her and says "no no no, Starling, there's not enough time - we want him for murder, not kidnapping..." Didn't Crawford really mean "kidnapping, not murder"? - most serial killers kidnap people and THEN kill them, not the other way round... [He's referring to the murders that Buffalo Bill has committed to this point, expecting that they'll catch him in Chicago, rescue the Senator's daughter, and have the kidnapping charge against him. At this point, all of the evidence that he's a serial killer as well is circumstantial, so Crawford wants Clarice to stay where she is and continue digging.]
Edit Time
Hannibal is completely bound, with his face behind the mask and tied to a dolly. He spies a paper clip on a desk. Presumably, he gets it and uses it to escape and kill the guards at his cage. How in the hell does he get it?  You never see him get it, and it seems impossible. [He uses the pen the doctor leaves within reach].
Edit
When Jodie Foster's character is being stalked in a supposedly unlit basement by a man wearing night vision goggles, why is there such a bright shadow behind her? [Some types of goggle use infra red light, so will have a source of infra red that lights up the surroundings like a normal torch when viewed by the right equipment, but is invisible to the naked eye, hence the shadow].
Edit