Hannibal: How The TV Show Fits Into The Movie Timeline

Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal TV show in some ways serves as an addition to the Lecter movie continuity, and is in other ways an alternate universe. It’s been nearly five years since NBC canceled Hannibal, but many fans still pine for a fourth season, one that will seemingly never come. Fuller and the cast have teased a Hannibal revival on multiple occasions, but there’s yet to be any actual forward motion on such a project since. For now, it appears that Hannibal is well and truly over.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Fannibals are going to stop re-watching the existing three seasons any time soon, reveling in the macabre yet beautiful imagery on display, and getting way too invested than anyone probably should in the potential romantic relationship between a cannibal serial killer and the FBI profiler hunting him. Now that Hannibal‘s full run will soon be on Netflix, even more people will likely discover its grotesque pleasures for the first time, maybe eventually leading to a legion of fans so loud they can’t be ignored.

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One aspect likely to confuse new Hannibal viewers though is where exactly it falls in the established continuity of the Hannibal Lecter films starring Anthony Hopkins. Believe it or not, the answer is both everywhere and nowhere. Hannibal alters enough aspects of the movies and the Thomas Harris books they’re based on to not fit neatly in any one slot on the timeline, but also keeps enough consistent to feel part of the same world.

Hannibal: How The TV Show Fits Into The Movie Timeline

Since Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is both a grown man and a seasoned psychiatrist when the Hannibal TV series begins, it clearly slots in long after 2007 prequel movie Hannibal Rising. In fact, there are several references and tie-ins to Hannibal Rising made in Hannibal season 3. The Hannibal TV series also begins slightly before Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) meets and begins working with Lecter, placing it years before Red Dragon, which itself got remade during season 3.

Where the Hannibal series’ timeline really falls out of step with the film continuity is that Hannibal season 3 also partially adapts the Hannibal novel, which is set after The Silence of the Lambs. Since Fuller couldn’t get the rights to include Silence of the Lambs and its characters in Hannibal, the show never adapted anything from that book, moving much of the Hannibal novel’s events way up in the timeline to before Red Dragon. The best way to describe how the Hannibal TV series fits into the movie timeline is to say that it’s a sequel to Hannibal Rising and a prequel to Red Dragon, with the caveat that its version of Red Dragon is set after the events of Hannibal the movie. It’s a bit confusing, but Dr. Lecter wants to keep everyone on their toes.

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