Context

This famous line is spoken by Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (directed by Jonathan Demme, 1991).

Don't worry—no lambs were harmed in the making of this film.

Okay, so to get to the meaning of this one we have to back up a bit. Earlier in the film, Clarice Starling admits to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, an imprisoned serial killer, that she has a recurring memory about a bunch of scared lambs waiting to be slaughtered. She thinks that finding a missing young woman will end these memories.

After Dr. Lecter escapes, he calls Clarice and says, "Well, Clarice… have the lambs stopped screaming?" In other words, he wants to know if, now that she's freed the maiden in distress, she's been able to find some sort of peace.

It's an odd dynamic between the two of them, to be sure. However, considering the connection between them, we can feel confident that, now that Lecter is on the loose, at least he won't be eating Clarice's liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Where you've heard it

This line won a mommy blog caption contest, and it's been used to refer to various situations in which someone feels helpless, like in this blog post about on an eating disorder and this review for a young adult book.

But if we want to hear it straight from the sheep's mouth…perhaps we should just ask the lambs themselves.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Awesome? Yes. Pretentious? Also yes.

First, it's spoken by Anthony Hopkins, who is a brilliant actor, but—let's face it—he can bring the ham. Second, the character he plays is a highly intelligent former psychiatric doctor, so you'd imagine that every other thing coming out of his mouth is pretty pretentious. And, finally, he's getting a bit meta by asking Clarice a question about her mental health via a metaphor that pops up in her subconscious.