Se7en (1995)
Se7en is a 1995 crime movie directed by David Fincher, with a running time of 2h 7m. It stars Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Rain never stops in the unnamed city where Detective William Somerset counts down his last days before retirement. His new partner, the hot-tempered David Mills, wants action. They catch a case built around the seven deadly sins: a killer stages each murder as a sermon, gluttony first, and dares the police to read the design. David Fincher shoots the decay in wet shadow, and Andrew Kevin Walker's script keeps the dread patient. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt play the mismatched cops, with Gwyneth Paltrow as Mills's wife. A landmark of 1990s crime cinema.
Quick answers
What is Se7en about?
Rain never stops in the unnamed city where Detective William Somerset counts down his last days before retirement. His new partner, the hot-tempered David Mills, wants action. They catch a case built around the seven deadly sins: a killer stages each murder as a sermon, gluttony first, and dares the police to read the design. David Fincher shoots the decay in wet shadow, and Andrew Kevin Walker's script keeps the dread patient. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt play the mismatched cops, with Gwyneth Paltrow as Mills's wife. A landmark of 1990s crime cinema.
When was Se7en released?
Se7en was released on 22 September 1995.
How long is Se7en?
Se7en runs 2h 7m.
Who made Se7en?
Se7en was directed by David Fincher.
Where can I watch Se7en?
Se7en is available on Peacock, Peacock Premium, Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home and Google Play.
Where to watch Se7en
Stream: Peacock, Peacock Premium
Rent: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home, Google Play
Buy: Fandango at Home, Google Play
Official site
Cast
- Morgan Freeman as Somerset
- Brad Pitt as Mills
- Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy
- John Cassini as Officer Davis
- Peter Crombie as Dr. O'Neill
- Reg E. Cathey as Dr. Santiago
- R. Lee Ermey as Police Captain
- Daniel Zacapa as Detective Taylor at First Murder
- Andrew Kevin Walker as Dead Man at 1st Crime Scene
- George Christy as Workman at Door of Somerset's Office
- Endre Hules as Cab Driver
- Hawthorne James as George the Night Guard at the Library
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Se7en in our writing
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- Companion guide: Buddy Cop: The Complete Guide to Mismatched Partners
- Companion guide: Detective & Mystery
- Companion guide: Film Noir & Neo-Noir: The Complete Guide
A few thoughts on Se7en
Death Note runs the same engine in comic form, a brilliant killer against obsessive investigators locked in a moral chess match. Sin City matches the rain-soaked noir dread. For a playable haunted detective grinding through a grim case, Disco Elysium and the early Max Payne both fit.
Detectives racing a killer who's already three steps ahead
Somerset and Mills spend Se7en chasing a plan finished before they got the case, and these keep that disadvantage. Mr. Mercedes puts a retired detective back on a killer taunting him by phone, Heavy Rain splits the hunt across four playable investigators, The Wolf Among Us has a fairy-tale sheriff working a case built to humiliate him, and True Detective and Memento fold time itself into the pursuit.
Killers who turn murder into a moral lesson
John Doe stages each Se7en murder as a sermon on a sin, and these killers all work from the same twisted rulebook. Saw III and Saw V follow Jigsaw's traps built to punish the guilty in his own eyes, Death Note gives a bored genius a notebook that lets him play judge over an entire city, and MW carries that idea of murder as a verdict into Tezuka's dark manga.
Neo-noir cities that feel as rotten as the crimes in them
The rain in Se7en never lets up, and the city feels complicit in every murder Mills and Somerset uncover. Sin City's comics and its film adaptation soak Basin City in the same moral rot, Blade Runner turns Los Angeles into one long night shift for a burned-out detective, and Max Payne and The Hot Spot both let a corrupt town close in on the man investigating it.
Ritual murders that turn detectives into reluctant theologians
Se7en frames each kill as scripture the detectives have to translate, and these send their investigators down the same road. The Name of the Rose has a medieval friar reading a string of monastery deaths as divine punishment, The Believers uncovers a cult murdering by occult ritual, and The Kindaichi Case Files and Resident Alien send an outsider investigator circling a killing built like a puzzle.