Will Graham

In the NBC series, Will is teaching at the FBI academy when Jack Crawford brings him back into the field. To look after his mind, Crawford calls in psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.

Will kills murderer Garrett Jacob Hobbs and grows attached to his daughter, Abigail. Little by little he hallucinates and loses time, and Hannibal makes it worse. When pieces of Abigail turn up, Will is accused. He figures out Hannibal is the one, but ends up locked in the psychiatric hospital.

Free once the case falls apart, Will goes back to therapy with Hannibal, and it's not always clear whose side he's on. He and Crawford set up an ambush.

Hannibal finds out. At the final dinner, Will arrives to find Abigail alive, only to watch Hannibal hurt her and gut him too. Will is left bleeding on the kitchen floor.

Will survives and chases Hannibal across Europe. After Hannibal turns himself in, Will marries Molly and helps raise her son, Walter.

Three years later, Crawford calls him in on the Francis Dolarhyde case, and Will needs Hannibal again. Molly is shot. In the final fight, Dolarhyde slashes Will's face, and Will and Hannibal kill the killer together. Will embraces Hannibal and takes them both over the cliff.

In the first film version, Will retired after nearly dying while catching Dr. Lecktor. Crawford talks him into coming back to catch the Tooth Fairy.

Will visits Lecktor, feels the toll of getting inside a killer's head again and sends his wife and son, Kevin, into hiding. He works out that the killer picked families from their home movies, reaches Dollarhyde's house, crashes through the window and kills him. Then he goes home.

In Red Dragon, Will is the one who learns in 1980 that Hannibal Lecter is the cannibal killer, and Lecter stabs him for it. Retired in Florida with Molly and their son, Josh, he agrees to come back when Crawford shows up with the Tooth Fairy case.

Will asks Lecter for help, and Lecter hands the killer Will's address. After picking up Francis Dolarhyde's trail, Will thinks the case is closed, until the killer breaks into his house and takes Josh hostage. Molly kills Dolarhyde, and Will gets a letter from Lecter.

Three actors have played Will: William Petersen in Manhunter (1986), Edward Norton in Red Dragon (2002) and Hugh Dancy across three seasons of Hannibal (NBC). Each version gives him a slightly different family: son Kevin, son Josh and stepson Walter.