# What is the best Anthony Hopkins performance of all time?

> From a cannibalistic genius to a dementia-stricken father, a Welsh patriarch to a Norse god, his career spans singular extremes of menace, elegance, and devastating humanity. Cast your vote!

*By YPB Team · Published April 11, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-anthony-hopkins-performance-of-all-time*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Silence of the Lambs (1991)**
   Hopkins won the Oscar playing Hannibal Lecter, the brilliant and terrifying cannibalistic psychiatrist who aids an FBI trainee in catching a serial killer.
2. **The Father (2020)**
   Hopkins won his second Oscar playing an aging man slipping into dementia, in a heartbreaking and disorienting portrait of cognitive decline.
3. **The Remains of the Day (1993)**
   Hopkins plays Stevens, a perfectly proper English butler whose lifelong suppression of emotion has cost him love and the chance for a real life.
4. **Nixon (1995)**
   Hopkins plays the 37th President of the United States in Oliver Stone's sweeping biopic, portraying Nixon's ambition, paranoia, and ultimate downfall.
5. **Amistad (1997)**
   Hopkins plays former president John Quincy Adams, who delivers a passionate final argument before the Supreme Court to free a group of enslaved Africans.
6. **Hannibal (2001)**
   Hopkins returns as the cultured cannibal Hannibal Lecter, now living in Florence and luring his pursuers into elaborate traps in this stylish sequel.
7. **The Two Popes (2019)**
   Hopkins plays the conservative Pope Benedict XVI in a riveting series of conversations with the reformist Pope Francis in Fernando Meirelles's acclaimed drama.
8. **Legends of the Fall (1994)**
   Hopkins plays Colonel William Ludlow, a patriarch whose three sons and their love for the same woman tear his Montana family apart.
9. **Red Dragon (2002)**
   Hopkins reprises Lecter as the imprisoned advisor helping Will Graham track a new serial killer, expanding the mythology before Silence of the Lambs.
10. **The Mask of Zorro (1998)**
   Hopkins plays the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega, who trains a young thief to carry on his legacy in this rousing action-adventure.
11. **Thor (2011)**
   Hopkins plays Odin Allfather, the regal and wise king of Asgard who banishes his arrogant son to Earth and is a commanding presence in the MCU.
12. **The Elephant Man (1980)**
   Hopkins plays Dr. Frederick Treves, the surgeon who befriends and champions the cause of Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's haunting period drama.

Tags: movies, actors, performances, anthony hopkins