The Silence of the Lambs/Awesome

• Hannibal Lecter's startlingly brutal and utterly brilliant escape at the end.
• Clarice shooting Buffalo Bill while he was stalking her in the dark.
• The first meeting between Lecter and Clarice. The polite banter. Clarice's unflinching answer about the embarrassing thing Miggs hissed at her. Lecter's professor-like tut-tut when Clarice forces the discussion onto that profiler questionnaire. Lecter's rude attempt to upset the rookie agent, and Clarice's hard retort. And then Lecter tells us about that Census taker who tried to test him: "I ate his liver, with some fava beans and a nice chianti." In those ten minutes, Silence of the Lambs owned that Best Picture Oscar.
• The final meeting between Lecter and Clarice as Clarice begs for Buffalo Bill's real name. Lecter insists on the original bargain with her, that she tells him about her past...
  • And she does, revealing her traumatic experience trying to save lambs from the spring slaughter:

Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs. Clarice: Yes. Lecter: And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don't you? You think if Catherine lives, you won't wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs... Clarice (in tears): I don't know. I don't know. Lecter (closes his eyes: he knows Clarice has given up the deepest secret of herself): Thank you, Clarice. Thank you.

• • • And then Chilton interrupts, before Lecter can tell Clarice the name.