The Silence of the Lambs Trivia
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50 free The Silence of the Lambs trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free The Silence of the Lambs trivia questions with answers. Silence of the Lambs trivia for people who still hear that slurping noise. The quiz covers Jonathan Demme's 1991 film from casting (Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer said no; Gene Hackman nearly directed) through production in Pittsburgh, the goalie-mask maker, Hopkins's HAL-and-Capote voice, the score and the cult songs, to its clean sweep of the Big Five Oscars. It also digs into the story: Buffalo Bill's real-life inspirations, the death's-head moth, the 'Louis Friend' anagram, the Memphis escape and the lambs of Starling's childhood, then widens to the whole Lecter franchise: Thomas Harris's novels, Manhunter, Hannibal, Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising, the NBC series and Clarice. Stems avoid graphic detail, so it suits a movie-night quiz. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the films, novels, characters and cast, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before his arrest, Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs practised which branch of medicine?
Psychiatry
Psychiatry: one of his former patients is the link to the killer the FBI is hunting, a lead he feeds the trainee sent to question him.
Q 02Who plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs?
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster lobbied for the role as soon as she had read the novel, even phoning the screenwriter mid-draft, while the director first wanted someone else.
Q 03Which actor did Demme first approach to play Hannibal Lecter before Anthony Hopkins?
Sean Connery
Sean Connery got the script first because he was the bigger box-office name; Demme recalled that word came back he found it disgusting, which freed him to cast Hopkins.
Q 04Who was Demme's first choice to play Clarice Starling?
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer had just starred in his Married to the Mob, but she turned the part down, later saying the subject matter made her nervous.
Q 05What did Hopkins reportedly ask his agent when told a script called The Silence of the Lambs was coming?
'Is it a children's story?'
'Is it a children's story?' was his reply, and ten pages into the script he rang his agent back to say it was the best part he had ever read.
Q 06Hopkins once said Lecter's voice blended HAL 9000, Katharine Hepburn and which American writer?
Truman Capote
Truman Capote was in the mix he gave Empire magazine in 1991; thirty years later he told GQ that the story about borrowing Hepburn's voice was not true.
Q 07The craftsman who made Lecter's famous muzzle for The Silence of the Lambs usually supplied which customers?
Hockey goalies
Hockey goalies: Ed Cubberly cut the design from the lower half of an old fibreglass goalie mask, added bars over the mouth and left the material its raw colour.
Q 08Which film was the last before The Silence of the Lambs to win the 'Big Five' Oscars?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept them at the 1976 ceremony. The Silence of the Lambs matched it despite opening in February, 13 months before its own Oscar night.
Q 09Which animated film lost Best Picture to The Silence of the Lambs?
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast, the first animated nominee for the top Oscar, had been shown unfinished at the New York Film Festival, with only about 70% of its animation complete.
Q 10In The Silence of the Lambs, what does Buffalo Bill send down the well to his captive?
Lotion
Lotion, to rub on her skin: he gives the order calling his captive 'it', and she later fights back by seizing his dog as a hostage.
Q 11Who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs?
Ted Tally
Ted Tally got the job after Harris gave him an early copy of the novel, and he kept writing unpaid when the star who was meant to direct it walked away.
Q 12Which actor planned to direct and star in The Silence of the Lambs before withdrawing from the project?
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman had bought the rights jointly with the studio, then pulled out over the story's violence; by one account his daughter read the book and told him not to make it.
Q 13Which studio released The Silence of the Lambs on Valentine's Day 1991?
Orion Pictures
Q 21In The Silence of the Lambs, what does Lecter use to slip his handcuffs?
A piece of a pen
A piece of a pen: the hospital director left it in Lecter's cell while telling him Starling's offer was a fake, and Lecter later used it to get free and attack his two guards.
Q 22In The Silence of the Lambs, which doctor runs the Baltimore hospital where Lecter is held?
Dr. Frederick Chilton
Dr. Frederick Chilton is still on Lecter's mind at the end: the escaped killer phones Starling while watching him step off a plane, and says he is having an old friend for dinner.
Q 23Who plays Jack Crawford, Starling's FBI boss, in The Silence of the Lambs?
Scott Glenn
Orion Pictures filed for bankruptcy protection that December, so the studio was already broke when its film swept the Oscars the following March.
Q 14Where was most of The Silence of the Lambs filmed?
Around Pittsburgh
Around Pittsburgh for most of the shoot, though the FBI also opened its real academy at Quantico to the crew.
Q 15What is Buffalo Bill's real name in The Silence of the Lambs?
Jame Gumb
Jame Gumb answers the door to Starling as 'Jack Gordon' at the very moment the FBI's raid team is storming an empty house in another state.
Q 16Which real killer's trick of faking an injured arm to lure victims did Harris borrow for Buffalo Bill?
Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy wore a fake cast and asked women to help him move things; Buffalo Bill copies the ploy, asking his target to help load a chair into his van.
Q 17Which real criminal's basement pit inspired the design of Buffalo Bill's well?
Gary M. Heidnik
Gary M. Heidnik held six women captive in a pit under his Philadelphia house while leading church services upstairs as a self-styled bishop.
Q 18In the film The Silence of the Lambs, what kind of insect does Buffalo Bill leave in his victims' throats?
A death's-head moth
A death's-head moth: Lecter reads it as a symbol of change, the transformation the killer wants for himself.
Q 19Lecter's false name for the killer, 'Louis Friend', is an anagram of what?
Iron sulfide
Iron sulfide is fool's gold, Lecter's way of telling Starling the tip was worthless.
Q 20In The Silence of the Lambs, which US city is Lecter flown to for a meeting with a senator?
Memphis
Memphis is where the senator's daughter was abducted; Lecter is flown there on the promise of a prison transfer and hands her a false name for the killer.
Scott Glenn prepared with the FBI, listening to a recording made by two real killers, and later admitted he may have gone a shade too far with his research.
Q 24In The Silence of the Lambs, the lambs Starling failed to save were on a relative's farm in which state?
Montana
Montana: she ran away from the farm after finding the spring lambs being slaughtered, and ended up in an orphanage.
Q 25In The Silence of the Lambs, what was the job of Starling's late dad, killed when she was ten?
Police officer
Police officer: a small-town marshal, he was shot answering a robbery, a memory Starling trades to Lecter for help, after he had guessed her dad was a coal miner.
Q 26How does Buffalo Bill stalk Starling at the climax of The Silence of the Lambs?
With night-vision goggles
With night-vision goggles he follows her through the blacked-out basement, but the click of his revolver being cocked gives him away and she fires at the sound.
Q 27Buffalo Bill's first victim, whose home gives Starling the breakthrough, worked as what?
A tailor
A tailor: her sewing room shows Starling that the killer sews too, and is cutting his victims' skin into a suit for himself.
Q 28Which cult song plays during Buffalo Bill's infamous mirror scene?
'Goodbye Horses' by Q Lazzarus
'Goodbye Horses' by Q Lazzarus reached the director by taxi: the story goes that the singer was driving a New York cab when she picked him up and played him her demo.
Q 29Who composed the score for The Silence of the Lambs, recorded by the Munich Symphony Orchestra?
Howard Shore
Howard Shore wrote it to go unnoticed inside the film, keeping the orchestra in its lowest registers for a constant sense of dread.
Q 30Lecter's famous line about a census taker mentions liver, fava beans and what?
A nice Chianti
A nice Chianti: it is his warning shot when Starling pushes an FBI questionnaire at him, and he sends her away with a hissing slurp.