Manhunter

Will Graham (William Petersen) is a retired FBI profiler living in Florida with his wife Molly and young son Kevin. His former supervisor, Jack Crawford, persuades him to return to duty to help hunt a serial killer the press calls 'the Tooth Fairy'—Francis Dollarhyde—who methodically murders entire families in their homes on nights of the full moon. Victims have been found in Atlanta and Birmingham. To sharpen his psychological read on the killer, Graham reluctantly agrees to visit the high-security asylum holding Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox), the brilliant and sadistic psychiatrist-turned-cannibal whose capture had precipitated Graham's breakdown and retirement. The consultation is uneasy; Lecktor is kept behind thick glass and clearly relishes Graham's discomfort. Graham travels between crime scenes, immersing himself in crime-scene photographs and home movies to reconstruct the killer's point of view—a technique that takes a heavy psychological toll. He deduces that the Tooth Fairy must have previewed his victims by watching their home movies: at one crime scene Graham notices bolt cutters were used to remove a padlock that had appeared in the family's own film footage. This leads him and Crawford to identify a film-processing laboratory in St. Louis as the link between victim families. Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), a large, physically imposing man disfigured by a cleft palate repair, works at that St. Louis lab. Tormented by a delusional sense of transformation—he believes he is becoming a great, mythological 'Red Dragon' by consuming his victims—Dollarhyde has nonetheless developed a tentative romantic attachment to Reba McClane (Joan Allen), a blind coworker. Their relationship offers him a rare human connection, though he cannot fully suppress his violent compulsions. In parallel, Dollarhyde makes covert contact with the imprisoned Lecktor through coded personal ads in a tabloid newspaper. Authorities intercept the channel, but before it can be shut down Lecktor exploits it to pass Dollarhyde Graham's home address along with an implicit suggestion that he kill Graham's family. Crawford immediately moves Molly and Kevin to a safe house. When Dollarhyde later sees Reba being driven home by a male coworker and misreads the encounter as romantic rivalry, he murders the man and abducts Reba, holding her captive. Law enforcement traces Dollarhyde to his residence. In the ensuing confrontation Dollarhyde shoots and wounds Crawford and kills several officers before Graham corners and kills him, rescuing Reba. The film closes with Graham, battered and shaken, reuniting with his family.

Sources: Wikipedia, OMDb, Web search (Wikipedia article + Francis Dolarhyde Wikipedia)