The director, the actors, the story, etc. It's one of those movies where everything came together beautifully. I think most would agree that, 'Silence.' is a classic. But I will compare it to the other, more recent films in the Hannibal Lecter series, 'Silence of the Lambs' and 'Hannibal'. I've also never read any of the Thomas Harris novels that they are based on, so I won't compare them to the books either.
Only having seen 'Manhunter' once, years ago, and not remembering much about it, I won't attempt to compare that film to it's remake, 'Red Dragon'.
