What actually happens
Homework with a cannibal
Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee at Quantico, is picked by Jack Crawford to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Lecter is a psychiatrist and a cannibal, locked up in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The interview is officially a psychological survey, but Crawford wants insight into Buffalo Bill, a serial killer targeting young women for their skin. The director, Dr. Frederick Chilton, makes unwelcome advances on her before leading her to Lecter's cell. Lecter is courteous until he works out Crawford's real motive. When Clarice leaves, an inmate named Miggs throws something at her, and Lecter is disgusted. He calls her back and gives her an anagram that leads her to a storage unit with a severed head in a jar. Miggs is later found dead, apparently on Lecter's orders, and Lecter agrees to help in return for a transfer away from Chilton.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
A fake deal and a real trade
Buffalo Bill kidnaps Catherine Martin, the daughter of a senator, and Crawford has Clarice offer Lecter a prison transfer he doesn't intend to honor. Lecter wants a favor in return and extracts personal details from her, including that her father, a cop, was killed when she was ten. Chilton records the conversation, exposes the lie and offers Lecter a transfer to Tennessee in return for information. Lecter takes it, and gives the senator accurate details about Buffalo Bill's appearance and a false name. Meanwhile, Catherine is held in a dry well in Bill's basement, where she manages to grab his dog. Clarice works out the name, meets Lecter in Memphis and tells him about the lambs she could not save on a relative's farm. Lecter returns the case files that night, then frees himself, kills two guards and escapes in an ambulance.
The moth gives it away
Studying Lecter's notes, Clarice concludes that Buffalo Bill was acquainted with the first woman he took, Frederika Bimmel, who was a tailor in Ohio. At Bimmel's house she finds unfinished dresses and patterns that match the patches of skin missing from the victims. She realizes Bill is making a suit out of human skin and starving his captives to loosen their skin. Meanwhile Crawford cross-checks Lecter's profile against names from Johns Hopkins and a list of known offenders and settles on Jame Gumb. Customs papers for live moth caterpillars imported from Suriname back him up. While Crawford's team raids Gumb's empty house in Calumet City, Clarice is interviewing Bimmel's acquaintances. She arrives at a house where Gumb calls himself Jack Gordon, and his act falls apart when she spots a death's-head moth.
Clarice in the dark, Gumb with goggles
Clarice chases Gumb into his basement and finds Catherine trapped in the well. Then the lights go out. This is the scene people dread most: Gumb follows Clarice in total darkness wearing night-vision goggles. It happens near the end of the film. He gives away his position by cocking his revolver, and Clarice fires at the sound and kills him. Catherine is rescued. Knowing the click is coming takes some of the sting out of it.
The ending, explained
Clarice shoots Gumb, who has been following her through the dark, and Catherine is rescued. Clarice then graduates from the FBI Academy. At the party afterward Lecter calls her from an unnamed tropical location and asks whether the lambs have stopped screaming. He tells her he won't come after her and asks her to extend the same courtesy, which she refuses. Lecter then announces that an old friend is coming over for dinner, and the camera shows him walking into a crowd behind Chilton. Buffalo Bill is dead, Catherine is safe, Clarice is an agent, and Lecter is free.
The post-credits ruling
Yes, there is a scene after the credits, so stay in your seat.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Silence of the Lambs scary?
Yes, The Silence of the Lambs is a 6 out of 10 with medium dread. The fear comes from interviews in a cell and a long, dark basement sequence, with a few jump scares and some grim imagery.
How does The Silence of the Lambs end?
Clarice shoots Buffalo Bill in his basement and rescues Catherine. Lecter has already escaped, and at Clarice's graduation party he phones her to say an old friend is coming for dinner.
Does the dog die in The Silence of the Lambs?
No dog dies in The Silence of the Lambs. Precious, Buffalo Bill's dog, is seized by Catherine in the well and survives.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Silence of the Lambs?
Yes. The Silence of the Lambs has a scene after the credits, so stay in your seat.
Who is Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs?
Buffalo Bill is Jame Gumb, a serial killer who takes the skin of young women to make a suit. In The Silence of the Lambs he holds Catherine Martin in a dry well in his basement.
