The film tells the story of a femme fatale, Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes, an Anglo-Indian woman who causes six deaths in an unending quest for love.

7 Khoon Maaf was released on 18 February 2011 to widespread critical acclaim, with major praise directed towards Chopra's performance.

7 Khoon Maaf tells the story of an Anglo-Indian woman, Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Priyanka Chopra), who murders all her husbands.

The story is narrated by Arun Kumar (Vivaan Shah), a forensic pathologist to his wife, Nandini (Konkona Sen Sharma).

Although Susanna tolerates Edwin's cruelty, she cannot forgive him for blinding her faithful, mute stableboy, Goonga Chacha (Shashi Malviya) with a whip.

Edwin ends up becoming the animal's meal during a panther-hunting trip when Susanna pushes him over with the help of her faithful maid Maggie Aunty (Usha Uthup), butler Galib Khan (Harish Khanna), and the stableboy Goonga Chacha.

Susanna's second husband, Jamshed Singh Rathod (John Abraham), who renames himself Jimmy Stetson after their marriage, is a singer whose flaw is his gluttony.

Police investigators find footprints near his body, indicating that a person with six toes is the murderer but Susanna uses her charm to deflect suspicion.

Her fourth husband, Nikolai Vronsky (Alexander Dyachenko), is a Russian spy leading a double life, who is enchanted by her.

Her fifth husband, Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor), is a police inspector who has shielded her from prosecution in exchange for sexual favors.

His dependence on Viagra then proves his undoing; one fateful night, Susanna mixes an overdose of the drug into Lal's drink, killing him.

It is the last straw for Susanna when she learns that Arun is now married to Nandini and has a son; and attempts to commit suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills.

Modhusudhon Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah) is a Bengali doctor who rescues Susanna from her suicide attempt and puts her on a mushroom-only diet.

In despair, Susanna then sets the house ablaze in another suicide attempt as sleeping pills had already failed her once, she had forgotten the bullets downstairs and did not approve of a death by hanging.

In the forensics laboratory, Arun discovers that the body is Maggie Aunty's and not Susanna's but declares her dead to return her favour of educating him.

It is later revealed that Susanna decided to become a nun, in effect making Jesus Christ - representation of love and kindness – her seventh and final husband.

The idea for 7 Khoon Maaf came when Ruskin Bond sent his book consisting of a collection of short stories to Vishal Bhardwaj.

Bhardwaj decided to include him in the film as an homage to Bond, explaining that he took liberties with characters' names and traits.

The film's preview and trailer were released on 24 December 2010 to a positive response from critics, who praised the whole presentation and Chopra's dialogues particularly: "Duniya ki har biwi ne kabhie na kabhie toh yeh zarur socha hoga, ki main apne pati se hamesha hamesha ke liye chutkara kaise paun" ("Every wife in the entire world must have once in her lifetime thought of how to get rid of her husband forever").

[41] Following the preview-trailer launches, Chopra promoted the film by appearing with seven men (dressed as bridegrooms) at the Radio Mirchi FM studio.

[42] The succession of marriages and funerals was illustrated at a promotional event for the film, where Chopra appeared as a Catholic bride in a wedding gown holding a bouquet.

The kit contained a rope, a syringe, a knife, a bottle of poison, a sachet of potassium cyanide, an ice pick and a blister pack of Viagra, which was based on Susanna's way to kill her husbands in the film.

[46] At the Friedrichstadt Palace (a Berlin theatre) an audience of some 2,500 people watched the film on the festival's final evening, giving the director and the nine cast and crew members present a standing ovation when they appeared onstage.

[46] 7 Khoon Maaf was originally scheduled for release on 21 January 2011, but was postponed a month to avoid conflicting with the Aamir Khan-starrer Dhobi Ghat.

[48] Reliance Home Entertainment released 7 Khoon Maaf on DVD in March 2011 across all regions in a one-disc NTSC format.

[5] Aniruddha Guha of the Daily News and Analysis rated the film a 4 (out of 5) and wrote, "For a filmmaker who has long established his hold over the craft, 7 Khoon Maaf is the only way forward – it pushes the envelope and takes you on a cinematic journey you may not experience in a Hindi film for a long time to come".

The maverick filmmaker has once again woven magic with his latest blockbuster Saat Khoon Maaf, which presents Priyanka Chopra in a never before character".

[57] [58][59] At the box office, the film opened to weak ticket sales across India (its release coincided with the 2011 Cricket World Cup).

[2][3] It made an additional ₹13 crore (US$1.5 million) from the pre-release sale of music, television, and home video rights.

Siddharth Roy Kapur (CEO of UTV Motion Pictures) said, "7 Khoon Maaf has worked well for us commercially due to a combination of tight production budgeting, optimized spending on prints and publicity and a pre-sales strategy that helped us to de-risk the film via sales of home video, music, satellite and theatrical rights even before the release".