Jonathan Demme
196 connections found
Filmography
The Silence of the Lambs 1991 
Rachel Getting Married 2008 
Beloved 1998 
Philadelphia 1993 
Married to the Mob 1988 
Something Wild 1986 
The Manchurian Candidate 2004 
Caged Heat 1974 
Last Embrace 1979 
Melvin and Howard 1980 
Crazy Mama 1975 
Stop Making Sense 1984 
The Truth About Charlie 2002 
Ricki and the Flash 2015 
Neil Young: Heart of Gold 2006 
Jimmy Carter Man from Plains 2007 View:
Connections, in both directions
It's a tremendously bad series of scenes: first we get a flashback triggered by absolutely nothing except a cheesy cut that demonstrates (as if the characterisation of Banner didn't already suggests as much) that Sheridan saw The Silence of the Lambs , just like the rest of us, and it's sufficiently harrowing in its juxtaposition of love and hate that it works on some visceral, primal level.
The scene is a reference to a parallel one, coming at the end of The Silence of the Lambs.
If the film has a failing, it is its derivativeness, references to "The Silence of the Lambs" beginning with Cory's entrance in that second scene, continued with the arrival of green F.B.I. agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), a young woman seeking justice for another young woman in an unwelcoming environment.
And the murder/mystery setup itself isn’t too far removed from “The Silence of the Lambs,” but with an unhurried nature that absolutely doesn’t match this concept.
The single element that probably received a rewrite is an encounter that pits a partially-blinded Jane armed and searching for a bad guy in constrained quarters – a probable nod to one of Sicario ’s more tense and suspenseful sequences (or more likely to the film’s biggest inspiration, The Silence of the Lambs ).
A Wedding (1978)
Directed by Robert Altman
influenced Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Themes Plot Visuals
Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, from a screenplay by Jenny Lumet, is said to have been inspired by Robert Altman’s satirically free-wheeling A Wedding (1978), and probably by Ms. Lumet’s own experiences in an interracial family.
Though clearly modeled on Robert Altman’s A Wedding (1978) (in fact, Altman is acknowledged in the credits), Demme’s film is at bottom a pretty basic dysfunctional-family movie—a subgenre of which there’s never been any shortage.
Like real marriages, marriage-themed films, all the way from Robert Altman’s quirky, star-infested A Wedding to the recent indie clunker Margot at the Wedding, can be an iffy thing.
Director Jonathan Demme acknowledges his admiration for Robert Altman's film A Wedding , and we see evidence of that in the free-floating cinematic style of the drama along with the playfulness of so many musical interludes.
Director Jonathan Demme stylistically, and in the credits, salutes Altman in Rachel Getting Married, but instead of Altman�s class-conscious A Wedding, Demme focuses on family as the place where, when you have no where else to go, they have to take you in.
With its rambling plot carved from the minutiae of details, its overpopulated landscape of neurotic characters, its speeded-up handheld camera tricks and its overlapping music and dialogue, Rachel Getting Married cannot fail to remind you of every Altman, from Nashville to A Wedding, but I didn’t find it as annoying and self-indulgent as those films, and to my taste, it’s a great deal more engaging.
The Little Things (2021)
Directed by John Lee Hancock
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Visuals Themes
The opening scene in the midnight-dark, period piece serial killer thriller “The Little Things” feels like a lift from a certain segment in “The Silence of the Lambs,” as if to acknowledge we’re in for a derivative thrill ride — and though writer-director John Lee Hancock actually penned the original screenplay for this psychological crime noir some 30 years ago, in terms of visual style and mood it reminded me of “Lambs,” with echoes of such works as “L.A. Confidential” and David Fincher’s “Seven” and “Zodiac.”
You know the one’s, the kind of movie that hit its popular apex with The Silence of the Lambs , followed by a boatload of bad knockoffs until David Fincher refined and eventually perfected the genre with Se7en and Zodiac .
In many ways, it feels like a script that’s been collecting dust since the ’90s, recalling crime thrillers of its era such as “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).
To be fair, before watching the film, I was pretty excited to delve back into the vibe of Se7en and myriad other serial killer movies of the 1990s, Hollywood projects aping The Silence of the Lambs while reacting to the age of grunge and Dahmer and Marilyn Manson.
It wants to play in the same space as 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs , 1995’s Seven , and even lesser titles like 1999’s Washington vehicle The Bone Collector .
Longlegs (2024)
Directed by Osgood Perkins
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Themes Plot Characters
Scenes and themes feel lifted in spirit from bigger, meatier thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Zodiac (2007) — it’s the 90s, and Lee is surrounded by taller male agents, and one early sequence sees her moving with a near-panicked intensity through a killer’s lair.
Longlegs’ premise is reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme's horror drama about a young and underestimated female FBI agent on the hunt for an elusive serial killer. Perkins has been explicit about this connection — and his hope for Longlegs to be in conversation with Demme’s classic — but a morass of other influences makes for a muddy movie.
Comparisons to Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs are justified, and in a just world there would be some buzz around Monroe come awards time.
Obvious comparisons to classic serial killer horror films like Jonathon Demme's The Silence of the Lambs and David Fincher's Se7en are valid up until the film's final act.
For Longlegs to be mentioned in the company of The Silence of the Lambs or Seven is to invite direct comparison, and it is a comparison in which Longlegs inevitably comes out worse for wear.
Writer-director Osgood Perkins’ serial killer chiller fully acknowledges a debt to The Silence of the Lambs in its chronicle of a young female rookie agent pulled into the FBI manhunt for a killer wiping out entire families.
The Whisper Man (2026)
Directed by James Ashcroft
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Themes Characters Plot
…fails to congeal with the sort of “Silence of the Lambs”-appealing pressure desired of a proposed tête-à-tête between longtime rivals on opposite sides of an investigation…
James Patterson’s serial killer novels, Slender Man, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, The Black Phone, and A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger all shape the story…
The Whisper Man is not going to challenge The Silence of the Lambs as the high-water mark of this genre…
She even gets her own Clarice Starling moment, because, again, all these movies are chasing The Silence of the Lambs.
Michael Keaton makes the most of limited screentime as the original Whisper Man, long locked away for his sick deeds, ready to play Hannibal Lecter-esque mind games with the police when they seek his advice on who might be picking up where he left off.
…a shop-worn narrative that feels like a remix of Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon…
It is, however, more like a weak episode of TV’s “Criminal Minds” than Jonathan Demme’s great 1991 Oscar winner “The Silence of the Lambs,” a landmark film of its kind from which “The Call” borrows a twist or two.
Slickly photographed by Tom Yatsko, who takes moody advantage of the long, winding stretches of roadway throughout Los Angeles and the Santa Clarita Hills, "The Call" comes very close to being a top-notch effort in the vein of 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs."
Indeed, the movie is so effectively constructed that it recalls enormous hits of decades past like Fatal Attraction and The Silence of the Lambs .
You know, the sort of thriller that wasn’t completely ridiculous, an effort in the vein of “Seven” or “The Silence of the Lambs,” an experience worthy of accolades.
The Call, directed by erstwhile indie wunderkind Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Session 9, Vanishing on 7th Street), looks and feels almost exactly like the long string of post-The Silence of the Lambs serial killer thrillers I was used to seeing as a teenager.
Director Brad Anderson (Transsiberian, Vanishing on 7th Street) keeps a tight lid on the chase, and even when Richard D’Ovidio’s screenplay — adapted from a story he wrote with Nicole D’Ovidio and Jon Bokenkamp — ends up in The Silence of the Lambs turf the suspense never lets up.
Prisoners (2013)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Visuals Themes
It’s something close in style to Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) — so close that it borrows a trick or two from that film.
The other superb movie Prisoners reminded me of, even though it’s not really very similar at all, is The Silence of the Lambs.
The movie's pop Guignol recalls The Silence of the Lambs , and also draws on David Fincher's Zodiac .
In so many Hollywood films about child kidnapping, “RANSOM,” “MAN ON FIRE,” “TAKEN” and “THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,” to name just a few, the mothers of the missing children are concerned – nothing more.
But come the climactic confrontation—the best bearding-the-demon-in-its-lair scenes since The Silence of the Lambs—the film has won back its credit.
That said, the film isn't for the squeamish as it features scenes of domestic torture and goes down some of the same dark alleys of the human psyche that the likes of "Se7en" and "The Silence of the Lambs" featured so many years ago.
Sicario (2015)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Visuals Characters
The scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, which will be as akin to that of a horror movie — sleek and elegant horror à la The Silence of the Lambs , not a slasher flick — as it is to that of a war movie.
In a terrific performance that recalls the steely ferocity of Jodie Foster in “The Silence of the Lambs” and Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty,” Emily Blunt stars here as Kate Macer, an FBI field agent who has been forced to don a Teflon exterior in order to rise through the Bureau’s male-dominated ranks, and to cope with the depravity she frequently witnesses in the line of duty.
As with Jodie Foster’s FBI agent Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs , Kate is not only working a case that draws her close to evil incarnate, but she's also operating in a man’s world.
Here she shapes her character as something of a modern-day Clarice Starling from "The Silence of the Lambs," an initiate to a world far removed from the one she trained for yet capable of adapting to its unfamiliar ways.
Blunt delivers a strong performance that follows in the footsteps of powerhouse frontline female characters seen in Zero Dark Thirty and The Silence of the Lambs , effectively portraying the sturdy courage of a character who stands her ground against unseen forces on both sides of the law, increasingly becoming an island onto her own as things escalate.
Protosevich's script borrows heavily from The Silence Of The Lambs, with Singh adding the dreamlike imagery of Altered States.
The basic story of The Cell is somewhat pedestrian, and can best be described as a watered down version of The Silence of the Lambs.
Despite the obvious plot similarities to "The Silence of the Lambs," it really doesn't seem like too bad a setup for a film.
This is The Silence of the Lambs for people who find Jodie Foster and Jonathan Demme too thinky.
Take "The Silence of the Lambs," a similar themed FBI/psycho-killer crime drama.
The Cell has been dismissed by some as just another serial killer movie but I defy anyone to view it back-to-back with The Silence of the Lambs and find any but the most superficial similarities.
True Story (2015)
Directed by Rupert Goold
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Plot Themes Characters Dialogue Visuals
There are a few minor subplots — including the thorny relationship between Finkel and his girlfriend Jill ( Felicity Jones ), and how their home lives parallel Longo’s own domestic issues — but the lackluster jailhouse tête-à-têtes between Hill and Franco crowd out almost everything else, until True Story begins to resemble The Silence of the Lambs if Clarice Starling was played by Jonah Hill, and Hannibal Lecter was a really dull guy imprisoned for taking too many lit classes at Yale.
The jailhouse jousting recalls “Capote” by way of “The Silence of the Lambs.”
First-time director Rupert Goold seems to be trying to capture the same unsettling bond shared by Agent Starling and Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Think, for instance, of the "quid pro quo" sessions between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs and how integral these sequences proved to be to the audience's understanding of their complex relationship.
Borrowing mise en scène and psychodynamics from The Silence of the Lambs and other blue-chip thrillers, Goold raises the menace level as momentary darkness creeps into Franco’s winsome crinkly smile—confirming whatever doubts about his innocence Finkel might have formed from nearly every fact he’s been presented with thus far.
And considering the plethora of interview scenes between the interviewer and suspect, it pales considerably to one of the best examples of that, "The Silence of the Lambs" (where viewers were literally on the edge of their seats never knowing what might be said or done in any given moment).
Troll 2 (2025)
Directed by Roar Uthaug
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Plot Themes Characters
The film dives headfirst into a “Silence of the Lambs” cross-examination between Kelley and Göring, as the two match wits by trying to outsmart each other in a game of mental chess.
Imagine Judgment at Nuremberg refracted through Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter’s relationship in The Silence of the Lambs.
There’s a certain flavor of “Silence of the Lambs,” of course, with the German general as the super-intelligent locus of evil and the shrink as the somewhat naive innocent who thinks he can match wits with him.
There are definite similarities between the Göring-Kelley relationship and the one between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs—questions of morality and ethics, and intellectual power versus low animal cunning.
Hermann Göring was a flat-out monster, so scenes where the psychiatrist interacts with him should have an intense vibe similar to the Clarice Starling/Hannibal Lecter dynamic in The Silence of the Lambs.
Nuremberg (2025)
Directed by James Vanderbilt
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Themes Characters Plot
Imagine Judgment at Nuremberg refracted through Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter’s relationship in The Silence of the Lambs.
Hermann Göring was a flat-out monster, so scenes where the psychiatrist interacts with him should have an intense vibe similar to the Clarice Starling/Hannibal Lecter dynamic in The Silence of the Lambs.
There’s a certain flavor of “Silence of the Lambs,” of course, with the German general as the super-intelligent locus of evil and the shrink as the somewhat naive innocent who thinks he can match wits with him.
There are definite similarities between the Göring-Kelley relationship and the one between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs—questions of morality and ethics, and intellectual power versus low animal cunning.
The film dives headfirst into a “Silence of the Lambs” cross-examination between Kelley and Göring, as the two match wits by trying to outsmart each other in a game of mental chess.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Characters
From voice mannerisms to body language, Fassbender commands the screen with a pitch perfect villainous performance, the kind that reminds of Anthony Hopkins turn as Hannibal Lectors in The Silence of the Lambs , where intellect and bad intentions meet in perfect fusion.
Co-written by John Logan, who last worked with Scott on Gladiator , the movie makes an atmosphere of gothic and romantic references: Shelley, Byron, The Phantom Of The Opera , Das Rheingold , The Silence Of The Lambs , the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, an alien city seemingly inspired by the imaginary architecture of Étienne-Louis Boullée.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Themes Characters
…given that the horror genre has not been kind to trans people, from “Psycho” to “The Silence of the Lambs.”
They indicated that the film would engage with the concept of gender deviance in classic horror films like Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.
Schoenbrun doesn’t just have Little Death remind audiences of Buffalo Bill or Angela from The Silence of the Lambs and Sleepaway Camp, respectively, and call it a day.
…with the lingering sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit mixed with the unpredictability of Hannibal Lector looking at Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs…
The Black Phone (2022)
Directed by Scott Derrickson
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Themes Plot
The grim look reminds us of other thrillers such as "Se7en" (1995) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991).
A whole escape sequence involving a combination lock is as stressful as it gets, and the film pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion while, most importantly, feeling earned, even while a climactic bit of misdirection is an obvious lift from “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Film bu yönüyle yer yer The Silence of the Lambs (1991) ve Scream (1996) filmlerini akla getiriyor.
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
Directed by Marc Rothemund
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Dialogue Characters
The sheer intellectual and emotional rigor of the back-and-forth between this terrible old lion and his cagey young prey is both crushing and exhilarating; my friend and colleague Jeffrey Overstreet compared it (brilliantly, I think) to the electrifying exchanges between Clarisse Starling and Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs .
We haven't seen a comparable clash between a principled heroine and a determined, malevolent villain since Agent Clarice Starling matched wits with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
Her interrogator is played by Alexander Held, who appeared in both of the German WWII films mentioned above, and their face-offs are equal or greater to the classic Foster-Hopkins moments in "The Silence of the Lambs," except of course, these are real conversations taken from the transcripts.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
influenced by Philadelphia (1993)
Themes Plot
At the same time, Dallas Buyers Club also deserves credit for being the first Hollywood film with significant LGBTQ themes since Brokeback Mountain in 2005, and the first significant AIDS film since Philadelphia in 1993.
Woodroof’s transformation from hostile bigot to understanding, sympathetic brother to the gay community stretches back to Jonathan Demme’s twenty-year old “Philadelphia,” in which the lawyer played by Denzel Washington followed much the same emotional trajectory.
But Dallas Buyers Club shows how little Hollywood dramas about AIDS have advanced since Jonathan Demme ’s (homo)sexless, sanitized Philadelphia (1993).
It is widely believed that the Academy was sympathetic to McConaughey and Leto because the Academy usually favors actors who play people who are terminally ill (Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia" for example.)
Although the films are very different in style, there is a comparison to be made with Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia , in which Denzel Washington plays a homophobic lawyer who takes on an Aids-related unfair dismissal case, a move that brings about personal change and reconciliation.
It's been 20 years since Tom Hanks put a movie star's face on the AIDS crisis in Philadelphia.
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
Directed by Jim Cummings
influenced by The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Plot Visuals Themes
This adds to the confused nature of the film overall, and even though Marshall shows some unexpected and bracing courage during the movie’s climactic confrontation, you’re ready to say goodbye to him even after the scant 90 minutes that have passed (by the way, the climax itself borrows heavily from the endings of two Hannibal Lecter thrillers, Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs , which may be a homage on Cummings’ part but can be distracting).
To say that it feels like an attempt to do a Coen Brothers version of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS overstates things a bit, but that’s the general sensibility.
“The Wolf of Snow Hollow” is an enjoyable enough watch, but a from-left-field climax too derivative of “The Silence of the Lambs” adds to an overall feeling of mishandled narrative.
Révélé par la tragicomédie Thunder Road (Festival du nouveau cinéma 2018), le scénariste, réalisateur et acteur Jim Cummings nous revient avec un film de genre où son sens de l’humour et du pathos coexiste avec les codes d’un thriller à la Fargo ou The Silence of the Lambs et des éléments d’horreur.
The Celebration (1998)
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
influenced Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Themes Visuals
For a moment, it feels as if Demme and Lumet are trying to conjure the supernaturalism of the unhappy Danish family get-together in 1998's "The Celebration."
Rachel Getting Married has more in common with the great Dogme film The Celebration than last year’s overacted Margot at the Wedding.
Quinn's freewheeling cinematography at times recalls Dogme films like The Celebration.
Director Demme shoots most everything with a dispassionate hand-held camera that evokes the fine Danish drama "The Celebration," which centered around a family reunion not unlike this one, captured the tense, dramatic events via a natural filmmaking style, and featured an actor, Ulrich Thomsen, who looks not unlike Bill Irwin here (Irwin plays the patriarch and his is a fine performance too, as is Rosemarie DeWitt's as the eponymous Rachel).
There is a lot of The Celebration, probably the best of all the Dogma films, in Rachel.
The Darwin chart of this breed of American indie, otherwise known as unlikely shrines to The Celebration (or Festen, if you prefer), follows in the United States with something like Margot at the Wedding near the top as most-evolved down mid-way to Rachel Getting Married and its histrionic Demme-tasse reduction, down to ankle-deep--we're talking primordial muck--with Dan in Real Life.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Rite” goes wrong with a guilty 4 – and don’t blame it on the winter doldrums because Hopkins’ Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs” was a February release.
Their face-off might remind you of the moment when FBI agent Clarice Starling first stepped to the glass prison cell containing Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs."
As this transition takes hold, it’s impossible not to liken Hopkins’ performance to everyone’s favorite psychopath from “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Anthony Hopkins peaked with "The Silence of the Lambs" and since then his career has involved many a sidelong reference to it in lesser films, i.e. "Titus."
The main reason to watch The Rite would be to see Anthony Hopkins ( The Silence of the Lambs ) back in full Hannibal Lecter-style swing, chewing on his lines and salivating over his verbs, using his blocky body, beady eyes and naughty troll's smile to suggest terrifying menace.
Judging by The Rite’s promotional campaign, its backers are clearly pinning their box-office hopes on the idea that folks still want to see Hopkins get scary as hell, as he did to Oscar-winning effect in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs .