Clarice Starling, a gutsy young FBI trainee haunted by her past, risks her life in an attempt to save a missing woman from certain death. The desperate, deadly search for a killer makes Clarice confront her deepest fears as she befriends the manipulative and psychopathic serial killer Dr. Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lechter, a monstrous brilliant psychiatrist, now incarcerated, who can lead her to the murderer.