Josh Olson on MANHUNTER 

Quite simply one of my favourite movies from the nineteen eighties.An atmospheric and chilling masterpiece from the legend that is Michael Mann.

Petersen was also in Thief in a blink and you'll miss him scene

I found this movie on DVD at Best Buy in the discount bin! Talk about a buried treasure! Strongly agree that the performances in this version of the Thomas Harris novel are much better than the more expensive "main stream" versions. While Sir Anthony deserved his Oscar, Brian Cox was criminally ignored even a nomination!

I don't know how much Michael Mann had to do with it, but season 3 episode of Miami Vice, "Shadow In The Dark," retells this story yet again as Crockett and Tubbs try to catch a bizarre cat burglar. Crockett attempts to predict his moves by trying to think like, and insert himself into the mind of, this really strange thief. One of the best episodes of the series.

William Petersen is one of the greatest yet underrated American actors of the last 40 years. Michael Mann's "Manhunter" and William Friedkin's "To Live And Die in LA" were definitely two of the greatest 80s movies ever.

Oh, and this film has possibly the best non-score soundtrack ever.

Read an excerpt of the Red Dragon novel included at the back of a pretty unexciting tie-in paperback of John Carpenter's "Halloween", and never forgot it. A few years later, I bought a well-thumbed second-hand paperback copy (with metallic red cover) from a pier-side bookstall in Portsmouth, and thought it was a masterwork of banal procedural horror. Same year the film was released and, while not altogether faithful to the ending, is absolutely in keeping with the tone of Harris's original, just seen through the neon prism of Mann's cinematography. Great performances, a truly sick villain and one of the most memorable fusions of soundtrack and visuals in the denouement. Really pretty decent fare for the Eighties, and not to be confused with Red Dragon, which is an adaptation prentice work by comparison to Mann's masterpiece.

It's funny that you mention the same years BLUE VELVET. Both that and MANHUNTER contained two of the all time champeen screen psychos ever etched into film. Tom Noonan's Francis Dollarhyde frighteningly low key, Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth anything but. And if you add John Glover's strangely charismatic scumbag from hell in the same years tragically underrated 52 PICKUP, you have a case that 1986 was the greatest year EVER for memorable screen psychos.

I was not a MIAMI VICE fan. Disco Miami on Cocaine just didn't appeal to a grungy old punk rocker like me. Dragged to go see this by my mother, who was a HUGE fan of the book, I expected the worst. I was surprised to see that I liked this movie for the same reasons I DIDN'T like MIAMI VICE. The slick pastel geometric art direction and electronic score MAKE THIS THING WORK. And I never thought that I would ever see anything that could make Iron Butterfly's IN A GADDA DA VIDA memorable, but I did. And Tom Noonan was a memorable hair-lipped creep for the ages.

As much as I love Anthony Hopkins and Mads Mikklesen's takes on the character, it was Brian Cox who taught me to fear Dr. Lector (Lektor, in MANHUNTER)! The scene with the phone still creeps me out. I love Graham's speech about pitying the Tooth Fairy as a child, as well as the slightly darker, long ending. "I... needed to see you."

I was pulled to see this in 1986 and like that same year's other amazement you mention, Blue Velvet, this film changed how I was able to view movies. It's a fantastic piece of movie making. One of my life's deepest regrets is the now lost to unknown destiny of my vinyl of this soundtrack. Everything about this film is everything that ever other Hannibal Lecter film wishes it could be. Thanks, Josh, for really standing up for this amazing work.

The 2 most intense police/crime thrillers of the 80's are To Live And Die In L.A. and Manhunter and William Peterson somehow manages to star in both of them.... :)

The movie also contains the best ever use of Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vid a" in film;

It is interesting to see that the aesthetics of this movie is quite the opposite compared with Red Dragon (and Silence of the Lamb). This is unnatural clean, electric and neon, sterile... And it works very good. The other movies are gritty and ugly.

As much as people love Hopkins version, I love Cox's version more! This movie is far superior to any of those with Hopkins. I know most of you do not think so. I don't care!! This IS a superior film!!! Shame so many don't see it for what it is.

Agree with everything although the review needed to say more about Brian Cox's performance - easily the most believable and therefore frightening portrayal of Hannibal.

Maybe one of these days Michael Mann will do his take on "Silence of the Lambs." They can call it "Cannibal Criminal".

I'm sorry but I think Manhunter is a far better film than Red Dragon, I love Brian Cox's lecktor way better. I know it's not as close tot he book as RD but it's such an amazingly tense crime thriller - it's sooooo 1986. perfect.

William Peterson never lets anyone else load his gun.

I really don't like the lead actor, unfortunately.

I agree 10000% bar my view that Thief was the greatest film of the 80s. But I find Cox was danger while Hopkins was panto villain

''Here I........am''.

Awesome movie

Saw "Manhunter" a few times, years ago. Can't say I remember much about it, other than the killer was tall, and yes, sympathetic, and that "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" brought the awesome to the climax. Which is of course missing in "Red Dragon." Which brings its own kind of awesome. To be honest, I did not expect much from "Red Dragon." I was quite surprised when I found it almost as good as "Silence of the Lambs." I'd like to do an end to end comparison sometime. Based on my faulty memory of the original, I'm going to declare them two different movies, or unrelated, as it were. But then again, what's wrong with trying a double feature with just "Manhunter" and "Silence of the Lambs"? The only thing puzzling me is, which should be played first?

Well said, man.

The film is mired in so much 80's kitsch that it ruins the impact of it for me. This is not Thomas Harris's brilliant novel. This is a better than average 80's action thriller with elements of psychodrama.