Silence of the Lambs or Se7en?

I prefer Silence because it has an insane amount of breadth within it - it's a feminist film, multi-level character study, horror film,
a straight thriller, psychological piece and on and on..........both probably just miss my English language top 10 of the 90s, both are among the best studio pics of the decade.

These films articulated something that was particularly 90s too - the "villain" is the smartest person but their intelligence has in effect lead to their madness - the mind is set against individual and his better self, they've looked into the abyss..........and they like it.

Seven is just ugly. It's just bleak and terrible and maybe that works for some people, but it got so dark that I just couldn't care.

Lambs, on the other hand, has great breadth like Pacinoyes said, with characters I could care about and much more going on than just sick serial killing; we've got Dr. Lecter playing with Clarice and then admitting more and more respect, we've got Clarice's almost masochistic desire to strip herself for Dr. Lecter, we've got the stuff about how we forge identities for ourselves.

Seven may have stuff like that, I don't know. I was too busy glowering in disapproval.

Silence is far, far better. And Zodiac is far, far better than it.

Silence of the Lambs easily. Se7en is one of Fincher's most impressive works in terms of its craft, but it's so oppressively dark that it's just such an onerous chore and not the type of film I enjoy consistently. Demme's film, though, is a masterpiece through and through, essentially impeccable across the board in addition to being incredibly watchable and utterly haunting. 

I always feel like I saw a different Silence of the Lambs than everyone else, it's a film I would consider pretty far from perfect. For one, Hopkins' performance, while entertaining, seems very out of place in an otherwise down to earth movie. He always reminds me of a Bond villain, and one of the campier Bond villains from the Connery or Moore era. Second, Jonathan Demme's direction seemed a bit sloppy to me - like how he does a hard zoom in on anything important or in general just moving the camera in obvious and distracting ways. Related to that is the tone problem. The score suggests a Gothic atmosphere, but the film is too well lit for that and as a result, the whole thing just comes off looking awkward. I do think Foster is great, though and Ted Lavine deserves more credit than he's gotten, but I don't value the film much as a whole.

Se7en, on the other hand, is a rich and powerful film, dripping in atmosphere and features one of the most disturbing performances in film history. Also interesting is while The Silence of the Lambs has a lot more gore and onscreen death (only one person is killed onscreen in Se7en and it's shown from a distance), I found Se7en to be a much more brutal film. It's a masterclass in the power of suggestion.

I give the edge to Silence but both are in my top 10 of the decade.

Se7en for sure, it's my #6 film of all-time, I am simply unable to fault it.

Silence of the Lambs is wonderful too, and makes the lower quarter of my Top 100. It also gets some bonus points for being comfortably superior to the book, but not enough for me to consider it 'flawless' or better than Se7en.

Se7en by quite a margin. Watched Silence of the Lambs a long time ago and it didn't leave an impression as strong as Se7en did, which I have re-watched several times since then.

Both great, but Lambs for me.

Se7en (one of my all time favorite films)

Lambs is really good though , but Se7en just hits all the right notes for me (masterpiece). I can't believe that film came out in 1995 (its aged like fine wine)

Silence of the Lambs by miles.