Se7en is a great movie (I own it). However the characters/writing in SOTL are superior. The character of Dr. Lecter alone puts this ahead of Se7en because John Doe is simply not as fascinating to me. As far as his character, he's not even on screen for the vast majority of the film. We get no interaction with him until the end for the surprise twist, so there's nothing really to feed off of. On the other hand Lecter is introduced at the beginning. He's cultured, he's a doctor, he eats people, he can convince someone to swallow their own tongue, in other words he's more interesting. In comparison to Brad/Morgan, the writers of SOTL actually bothered to flesh out Jodie Foster's character. Se7en gives a little bit of lip service to some marital problems between Gwyneth and Brad, but that's really on the back burner (until they exploit it for the twist ending). Foster's character, on the other hand, has a backstory that is integral to the storyline. The writers devote a great deal of time to letting the audience know the type of woman she is and how her inner demons influence her behaviors and the storyline.
Anyway, the twist at the end of Se7en is good, but the other 99% of the film is basically 6 inventive crime scenes. I've seen this (albeit to a lesser extent) in many other films. I've yet to see anything rivaling SOTL as far as crime procedurals go. One of my all time favorites.
