Manhunter (1986)

Manhunter is a 1986 American crime thriller film based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it stars William Petersen as Will Graham and features Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor. When asked to investigate a killer known as "The Tooth Fairy", FBI profiler Will Graham comes out of retirement to lend his talents to the case, but in doing so he must confront the specter of his past and meet with a jailed killer who nearly counted Graham amongst his victims. Dennis Farina co-stars as Jack Crawford, Graham's superior at the FBI, and serial killer Francis Dollarhyde—"The Tooth Fairy"—is portrayed by Tom Noonan.

Manhunter focuses on the forensic work carried out by the FBI to track down the killer and shows the long-term effects that cases like this have on Graham, highlighting the similarities between him and his quarry. The film features heavily stylized use of color to convey this sense of duality, and the nature of the characters' similarity has been explored in academic readings of the film. This was not the first adaptation of a Harris novel for the screen—the 1975 novel Black Sunday, a story of a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl, was made into a film in 1977—but it was the first film to feature serial killer Hannibal Lecter, who would later appear in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising, and the 2013 television series Hannibal.

Opening to mixed reviews, Manhunter fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release, making only $8.6 million in the United States. However, it has been reappraised in more recent reviews and now enjoys a more favorable reception, as both the acting and the stylized visuals have been appreciated better in later years. Its resurgent popularity, which may be due to later adaptations of Harris' books and Petersen's success in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, has seen it labelled as a cult film.

Synopsis

Will Graham (William Petersen) is a former FBI criminal profiler who has retired because of a mental breakdown after being attacked by a cannibalistic serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox) whom he captured. Graham is approached at his Florida home by his former FBI superior Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina), who is seeking help with a new serial killer case. Promising his wife (Kim Greist) that he will do nothing more than examine evidence and not risk physical harm, Graham agrees to visit the most recent crime scene in Atlanta, where he tries to enter the mindset of the killer, now dubbed the "Tooth Fairy" by the police for the bite-marks left on his victims.

Actors