Manhunter is a thriller film based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it features Brian Cox as the popular character Hannibal Lecter (although the character's name is spelled "Lecktor" in this film) and stars William Petersen, Joan Allen, Kim Greist, Dennis Farina and Tom Noonan. The cinematographer was Dante Spinotti who also served as the director of photography on Red Dragon, the 2002 film version of the novel.

Synopsis

Petersen plays Will Graham, a former FBI agent who captured the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecktor and was almost killed in the process; he is so traumatized by the event that he retires from the FBI. His former boss, Jack Crawford, calls him out of retirement to help find a killer called "The Tooth Fairy" who is murdering entire families. Graham is a profiler who has an uncanny ability to (figuratively) enter the mind of a killer and think and feel as he does. Some would say that a more accurate description of what Graham does is allocating part of his own being to that of the killer's — or deliberately becoming schizoid — to more fully experience, long-term, the serial killer's personality and outlook — at substantial risk to his own physical, mental and emotional health — because it is a process that is not so easily undone. Doctor Lecktor confronts him about this knack during a zoologically-oriented visit from Graham and points out something that Will already knows but doesn't like to admit: The reason Graham caught Lecktor is that they are "just alike." "If you want to get the old scent back", Lecktor says, "Smell yourself!"