Buffalo Bill was based on three real serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims and wore the skin; Ted Bundy, who wore a cast to appear crippled and lure unsuspecting, sympathetic women; Gary Heidnick, a man who kept the women he abducted in a pit in his basement.

Anthony Hopkins won a Best Actor Oscar for his role as Hannibal Lecter, even though he's only on screen for a little more than 16 minutes.

Author Thomas Harris has never watched the film because he's afraid that it'll influence his writing.

In the cage scene, right before Hannibal kills and eats the guards, he tells them to roll up the drawings. When the guard is doing that, look on the table...there's a copy of Bon Appetit magazine.

Michelle Pfeiffer was the first choice for the role of Clarice Starling but declined due to the film's violent subject matter.

During the film's production, while Anthony Hopkins was playing Hannibal Lecter, Brian Cox (who played the character in "Manhunter") was playing King Lear at the National Theater. Ironically, during the production of "Manhunter" five years earlier, Hopkins was playing King Lear at the same theater.

Ever get a weird feeling of nostalgia when you see the other psychopaths in Hannibal's ward? That's because one of them is them is played by Don Brockett (who played Chef Brockett on the children show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" from 1967-1995)).

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

The female dead body in the funeral home was a real actress, not a mannequin. Because the bug cocoon would be placed in her mouth until it is taken out in the middle of the examination, the prop master made the bug cocoon out of a mixture of tootsie rolls and gummie bears. This way if she accidentally swallowed it, it wouldn't do her any harm.

When Anthony Hopkins was preparing to take on the role of Hannibal Lecter, he called Thomas Harris, the author of the Lecter trilogy, and gave him a sample of the Lecter voice. Harris was so frightened by the accuracy of it that he hung up on Hopkins.

FBI agent John Douglas made Scott Glenn (the actor who plays Jack Crawford) cry, when Glenn was at the Behavioral Sciences Unit (now called Investigative Support Unit) in Quantico, Virginia. He played a tape (sound, not video) of killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris torturing, raping and killing young girls (between 13-18 years old) in the back of their van. Before the encounter, Glenn was firmly against capital punishment.

Only the third movie to win all five major Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay). The others are "It Happened One Night" (1934) and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975).

Gene Hackman was considered for the role of Hannibal Lecter.