Dollarhyde Defined: Tom Noonan’s Quiet Terror in Manhunter

Owen Gleiberman argues that Tom Noonan’s portrayal of Francis Dollarhyde in Michael Mann’s Manhunter is the defining, unnerving portrait of a psycho killer: a terrifyingly quiet, vulnerably human performance highlighted by scenes like his first appearance in the wheelchair, the slide-show of murders, and the climactic confrontation, which helps make Manhunter the original, standout thriller often considered superior to later “Silence of the Lambs” in its eerie precision and psychological depth.