Se7en Trivia
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51 free Se7en trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Se7en trivia quiz covers David Fincher's 1995 thriller from the gluttony crime scene on Monday to the delivery van on Sunday evening. The easy questions are for anyone who has seen it once: who plays Mills, Somerset and Tracy, which sin each victim represents, how the detectives find John Doe's apartment, and whose words Somerset borrows for the final line. The harder half is about how the film got made and very nearly didn't: the thirteen drafts, the studio's push for a happier ending, the ending Brad Pitt made a condition of signing, the actors who turned down John Doe, the injury written into the script, the bleach-bypass print process, the $50,000 title sequence, the box-office run, the one Oscar nomination and the sequel that became a different film entirely. Expert questions go into the cinematographer's influences, the composer, the comic-book prequel and the prop that was actually in the box. Every answer was checked against the film's Wikipedia article and its cited sources before publishing, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 51 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1995 film won Se7en's killer an Oscar?
The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects reached US cinemas about a month before Se7en, so in the autumn of 1995 audiences could watch the same actor as the hidden villain of two thrillers within weeks of each other.
Q 02Who directed Se7en?
David Fincher
David Fincher directed Se7en, only his second feature; he was mistakenly sent the writer's original, bleaker draft of the script and fought to keep its grim ending.
Q 03In Se7en, what secret does Mills's wife confide to Somerset when they meet alone?
She is pregnant
She is pregnant, and afraid to raise a child in so violent a city; she has not told her husband, who learns of it only from John Doe in the final scene.
Q 04Who plays Detective Lieutenant William Somerset in Se7en?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman plays Somerset. He favoured an ending that let the younger detective keep his career, but his co-star argued it would never ring true, and the bleaker version was filmed.
Q 05Which actor plays the killer, John Doe?
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey plays John Doe; at his request his name was kept out of the opening credits and the advertising so audiences would not guess the killer's identity.
Q 06Who plays Mills's wife in Se7en?
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow plays Mills's wife. In the studio's rewritten draft her character survived, with Mills racing home in time to save her, but the director refused to make that version.
Q 07How is John Doe finally taken into custody in Se7en?
He walks in and surrenders
He walks in and surrenders, covered in blood, with half an hour of the film still to run; the killer gives himself up because his arrest is part of the plan, and two of the seven sins are still to come.
Q 08In Se7en, the first of John Doe's victims to be found represents which sin?
Gluttony
Gluttony is scrawled on the wall behind the dead man's refrigerator. Bob Mack played the victim, and said he was told the part was a very heavy guy face down in spaghetti.
Q 09In Se7en, the victim forced to cut a pound of flesh from his own body was marked with which sin?
Greed
Greed marks the scene where defense attorney Eli Gould was made to cut off a pound of his own flesh, a punishment the killer borrowed from Shylock's bond in The Merchant of Venice.
Q 10In Se7en, how long had the sloth victim been strapped to his bed when the police found him?
One year
One year: John Doe strapped the man to his bed, kept him barely alive for twelve months and left photographs to prove it, so what looks like a corpse when the police arrive is still breathing.
Q 11At the end of Se7en, which sin does John Doe claim to embody himself?
Envy
Envy: only after the box is delivered does John Doe say he coveted Mills's ordinary married life and killed for it.
Q 12Which sin is Mills goaded into completing in the final scene?
Wrath
Wrath: Doe has the head of Mills's wife delivered in a box, and Mills completes the final sin by shooting him despite Somerset's pleas.
Q 13Who wrote the screenplay for Se7en?
Andrew Kevin Walker
Andrew Kevin Walker wrote Se7en while working behind the counter at a Tower Records in New York; he has said the idea came from walking the city and seeing a deadly sin on every street corner.
Q 21Which studio produced Se7en and first released it in cinemas?
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, the studio behind the Nightmare on Elm Street films, made Se7en. Its director has said that shooting a grim little serial-killer picture there meant far less oversight than he had known at a major studio.
Q 22Which actor turned down John Doe in Se7en, calling the script "the most evil thing I've ever read"?
Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty was the director's first thought because he resembled the 1969 police sketch of the Zodiac killer, a face that looked like a wanted poster. He read the script and refused.
Q 23Which rock frontman was considered for John Doe but was unavailable because his band was touring?
Q 14What do the police find filling the shelves of John Doe's apartment in Se7en?
Handwritten notebooks
Handwritten notebooks line the killer's shelves. The designers filled real prop books with tiny, dense writing, and footage of those books being written became the film's opening title sequence.
Q 15Before Se7en, the director's only feature film was which one?
Alien 3
Alien 3 (1992) was the director's only earlier feature; the studio recut it, he disowned the result and was reluctant to direct again until Se7en's script reached him.
Q 16Se7en's unnamed city was shot on location in which real city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles stood in for the unnamed city. Real storms kept interrupting the shoot, so the director had the remaining exteriors drenched with rain as well, simply so that the footage would match.
Q 17Which song, in a remixed version, plays over Se7en's opening title sequence?
"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails
"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, in a jagged remix by Coil and Danny Hyde, runs under the titles; the director's first choice to make the sequence was the man who had shot the song's music video.
Q 18Which singer's single "The Hearts Filthy Lesson", made with Brian Eno, plays over Se7en's end credits?
David Bowie
David Bowie closes the film. The song began as a group improvisation during his sessions with Brian Eno, and its video, directed by Samuel Bayer, stages a grotesque ritual of its own.
Q 19Who composed the score for Se7en?
Howard Shore
Howard Shore composed Se7en's brooding orchestral score; he had already scored several David Cronenberg films and later wrote the music for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Q 20Which designer created Se7en's scratched, hand-made title sequence?
Kyle Cooper
Kyle Cooper designed the titles at R/Greenberg Associates. He said the director wanted them to tell anyone expecting a glossy star vehicle that they were in the wrong theater, and to send them out screaming.
Michael Stipe of R.E.M.
Michael Stipe of R.E.M. had to pass because the band was leaving on tour for its album Monster as filming began. The net for John Doe was cast wide: the director was also keen on the comic actor Christopher Guest.
Q 24How did Pitt injure his hand while filming Se7en's rain-soaked chase?
Going through a car windshield
Going through a car windshield: he slipped on a rain-slicked hood and severed a tendon. He was back within days, the cast was written into the story, and in scenes set earlier he hides the hand in a pocket.
Q 25Roughly how much did Se7en take at cinemas worldwide?
$327 million
$327 million, about ten times what it cost. Few expected much of so grim a film, yet it opened at number one in the US and stayed there for four straight weeks.
Q 26Which studio executive backed Se7en's director in keeping the script's original ending?
Michael De Luca
Michael De Luca, the studio's president of production, told the director he had liked the head-in-the-box ending too, and stayed behind the film even when it ran about $3 million over budget.
Q 27Se7en opened at number one with $14M, beating the debut of which notorious film?
Showgirls
Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven's NC-17 drama, arrived on a wave of publicity and took about $8 million; the grim thriller few had expected much from beat it, then stayed at number one for four weeks.
Q 28Who was the cinematographer on Se7en?
Darius Khondji
Darius Khondji, the Iranian-French cinematographer of Delicatessen, shot Se7en. He won the job through Nike commercials he had made with the director, and an Oscar nomination for Evita followed a year later.
Q 29Se7en's cinematographer named which 1971 thriller as a major visual influence?
Klute
Klute, photographed by Gordon Willis, taught him to light from overhead and to use the wide frame for intimacy rather than big vistas; he called it a major discovery that stayed with him for the rest of his career.
Q 30Se7en's only Academy Award nomination came in which category?
Best Film Editing
Best Film Editing was Se7en's lone Oscar nomination, and it lost to Apollo 13. Its cast did better elsewhere: that night two of its stars were up against each other for Best Supporting Actor, each for another film.