The Silence of the Lambs

While it likely wasn't the filmmaker's goal, this movie made serial killers look magnetic, brilliant, and like resourceful masterminds, thanks to the compelling Hannibal Lecter character. Meanwhile the rather less suave "Buffalo Bill" has been criticized for perpetuating the stereotype of transvestites and transsexuals as loathsome misfit maniacs. The overshadowed heroine, Clarice Starling, is a youngish female crimefighter of humble origins, with an idealistic streak to save innocent lives, who must approach Lecter's world of evil and madness without being engulfed by it. Starling succeeds in this telling (though in one book sequel she ultimately succumbed). Most characters of color are domestics, with the exception of Clarice's rather underwritten best friend, her female roommate.

A full-frontal nude scene (sort of) for the gender-confused psycho killer Buffalo Bill. A brief (hardly titillating) look at one of his victims, nude and bloated on an autopsy table. A madman masturbates and throws his bodily fluids at Clarice Starling (it happens quickly and goes without much dialogue explanation). Brief references to kinky sex and sexual acts, sometimes in a criminal-investigative context, sometimes in terms of men hitting on the Jodie Foster's character.