Hannibal Box Office: Every Film's Budget and Gross

The Hannibal Lecter films have earned about $925 million worldwide, adding together the Box Office Mojo worldwide figures for all five releases, and the highest grosser is Hannibal (2001), directed by Ridley Scott, at $352 million. That is four main films plus one spin-off (the full list sits on how many hannibal movies). Budgets and grosses for each film, in release order, are below.

Every figure in the table comes from Box Office Mojo. The Numbers lists Hannibal (2001) at about $350 million worldwide, so the two trackers round that film slightly differently, and the Box Office Mojo figure is the one used throughout.

The Silence of the Lambs took $131 million at home and $142 million abroad, with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. Hannibal 2001 opened to $58 million over its first weekend and finished with $165 million domestic and $187 million international. Red Dragon 2002 ended on $209 million worldwide, with Hopkins returning opposite Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes. Hannibal Rising was the prequel without Hopkins, and it earned $82 million worldwide, roughly two thirds of it from outside the United States.

Manhunter 1986 is the small figure in the table. Michael Mann's film, with Brian Cox as Dr. Hannibal Lecktor, earned $8.9 million worldwide, and neither Box Office Mojo nor The Numbers lists a budget. Its total counts all releases, and Rialto Pictures put out a 4K Final Cut in US theaters on July 24, 2026. The NBC series Hannibal and the CBS series Clarice are television and carry no theatrical gross (the hannibal tv series page covers them).

By raw gross the winner is Hannibal (2001), but by return on budget it is The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and in my opinion the second measure tells you more about how a film actually performed. Hannibal (2001) made $352 million on $87 million, which is about four times its cost. The Silence of the Lambs made $273 million on $19 million, which is more than fourteen times its cost. If you think of it like a restaurant, one place sells more plates, but the other makes far more on each plate.

The decline after the first sequel is steady. Red Dragon (2002) cost $78 million and earned $209 million, a multiple of roughly 2.7. Hannibal Rising (2007) cost $50 million and earned $82 million, a multiple of about 1.6, and its $28 million domestic take was the lowest of any main film. It could be argued that removing Hopkins hurt it most, because the saga had always sold itself on his Lecter. Perhaps the other problem is that a prequel about Lecter's wartime childhood in Lithuania and his time with Lady Murasaki in Paris asked audiences to follow a younger actor, Gaspard Ulliel, into a story they had already seen hints of.

Hannibal (2001) is the interesting case, because it has Julianne Moore as Clarice where The Silence of the Lambs had Jodie Foster, and it still produced the biggest numbers in the series. Its $58 million opening weekend shows how much demand a decade of waiting had built. But, the legs were weaker than the opening suggests, since the final domestic total was only a little under three times that first weekend. Red Dragon, a remake of Manhunter with Hopkins back in the cell, finished well below Hannibal, and I would argue that it earned its money mostly from the brand.

Manhunter sits apart, with the smallest total of the five at $8.9 million and no listed budget, so, as such, it is hard to compare with the later Hopkins films on money alone.

If you want to see where each film lands on quality rather than cash, the hannibal movies ranked page gives a full order with reasons. If you are new to the series, the hannibal movies in order page sets out both the release and chronological orders, and the hannibal movies hub covers the whole saga. No studio has announced a dated new Lecter film, so the series total is unlikely to change soon (the latest status is on the new hannibal movie page).