Now Playing Podcast Presents: The Hannibal Lecter Retrospective Series

Now Playing Podcast
Now Playing Podcast
  • 4.6 (19)
  • Film Reviews

Before he became a pop culture icon, he was simply Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Brilliant psychiatrist. Cultured gentleman. Cannibalistic serial killer. In this Now Playing Podcast retrospective, we trace the evolution of cinema's most infamous dinner guest, beginning with Manhunter, continuing through the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, and ending with Hannibal Rising. Along the way, we compare the performances of Brian Cox, Anthony Hopkins, and Gaspard Ulliel, examine how each film adapts Thomas Harris's novels, and decide which entries are deliciously twisted and which should have stayed off the menu. Just remember. If someone offers you liver and fava beans, you may want to decline.

Episodes

  1. 10/31/2011

    Hannibal Rising

    The story of the early, murderous roots of the cannibalistic killer, Hannibal Lecter – from his hard-scrabble Lithuanian childhood, where he witnesses the repulsive lengths to which hungry soldiers will go to satiate themselves, through his sojourn in France, where...

  2. 10/25/2011

    Red Dragon

    Former FBI Agent Will Graham, who was once almost killed by the savage Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter, now has no choice but to face him again, as it seems Lecter is the only one who can help Graham track down...

  3. 10/18/2011

    Hannibal

    After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again when he's discovered leaving a deserving few dead in the process. He returns to America to make contact...

  4. 10/11/2011

    The Silence of the Lambs

    Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism....

  5. 10/11/2011

    The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

    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.

  6. 10/05/2011

    Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

    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.

  7. 10/04/2011

    Manhunter

    FBI Agent Will Graham, who retired after catching Hannibal Lecktor, returns to duty to engage in a risky cat-and-mouse game with Lecktor to capture a new killer.

  • 7 Episodes

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Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
19 Ratings

About

Before he became a pop culture icon, he was simply Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Brilliant psychiatrist. Cultured gentleman. Cannibalistic serial killer. In this Now Playing Podcast retrospective, we trace the evolution of cinema's most infamous dinner guest, beginning with Manhunter, continuing through the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, and ending with Hannibal Rising. Along the way, we compare the performances of Brian Cox, Anthony Hopkins, and Gaspard Ulliel, examine how each film adapts Thomas Harris's novels, and decide which entries are deliciously twisted and which should have stayed off the menu. Just remember. If someone offers you liver and fava beans, you may want to decline.

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