An American media franchise based around the titular character, Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant, cannibalistic serial killer whose assistance is routinely sought out by law enforcement personnel to aid in the capture of other criminals. He originally appeared in a series of novels (starting with Red Dragon in 1981) by Thomas Harris. The series has since expanded into film and television.
A former FBI profiler is brought back into the fold after an allusive serial killer strikes.
FBI trainee Clarice Starling is pulled from training at Quantico by her mentor Jack Crawford of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, whose insight might prove useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill, who is murdering and skinning his female victims.
Ten years after tracking down serial killer Buffalo Bill (character), Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Clarice Starling is unjustly blamed for a botched drug raid. She is later contacted by Mason Verger, the only surviving victim of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter. A wealthy Child sexual abuse, Verger was paralyzed and brutally disfigured by Lecter during a therapy session. He has been pursuing an elaborate scheme to capture, torture, and kill Lecter ever since. Using his wealth and political influence, Verger has Starling reassigned to Lecter's case, hoping her involvement will draw Lecter out.
In 1980 Dr. Hannibal Lecter attends an orchestral performance of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn)'' in Baltimore, Maryland. He is irritated by a flute player who repeatedly misses his part. Later, he hosts a dinner party in his townhouse for the orchestra's board of directors. During conversation, the disappearance of the flute player is brought up. When one of the guests asks about the ''amuse-bouche'' Lecter made, he responds that if he tells her, she might not try it.
In 1941, eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter lives in Lecter Castle in Lithuania. The German Operation Barbarossa of the Soviet Union turns the Baltic region into part of the bloodiest front line of World War II. Lecter, his younger sister Mischa Lecter, and their parents travel to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries soon to be occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, they destroy a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family's lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until five former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas, storm and loot it. Finding no other food in the bitterly cold Baltic winter, the men look menacingly at Lecter and Mischa.
Both a gift and a curse, Will Graham has the extraordinary ability to think like his prey—he sees what they see, feels what they feel. But while Graham is pursuing an especially troubling, cannibalistic murderer, Special Agent Jack Crawford teams him with a highly respected psychiatrist – a man with a taste for the criminal minded – Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
FBI Agent Clarice Starling returns to the field in 1993, one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. Brilliant and vulnerable, Clarice's bravery gives her an inner light that draws monsters and madmen to her. However, her complex psychological makeup that comes from a challenging childhood empowers her to begin to find her voice while working in a man's world, as well as escape the family secrets that have haunted her throughout her life.