Winning the Best Actor (Lead) Oscar usually requires a performer to carry the majority of a film's runtime. However, Anthony Hopkins won the award for his role as Hannibal Lecter in 'The Silence of the Lambs' with surprisingly little screen time. He appears in the film for only about 16 to 24 minutes (depending on the measurement method) of the 118-minute movie. Despite this, his performance was so terrifyingly impactful that it defined the entire film. This is often cited as a testament to the power of a performance over the quantity of screen time. It remains one of the shortest lead acting performances to ever win the top acting prize, proving that quality can indeed outweigh quantity.