Sherlock Holmes has been on screen for more than a century, and none of the adaptations connect. Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective and his friend Dr. John Watson have been played by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in fourteen films from 1939, by Jeremy Brett in Granada's faithful series from 1984, by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law for Guy Ritchie, and by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in modern London. Enola Holmes follows his younger sister, and Mr. Holmes finds him retired at 93.
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No. 01 · 1939 · Film
The Hound of the Baskervilles recap
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) is the first of fourteen films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, directed by Sidney Lanfield for 20th Century Fox and the first Holmes film set in Victorian times. In 1889, Dr. Mortimer tells Holmes about the death of Sir Charles Baskerville on the Devonshire moor, the footprints of a gigantic hound beside his body, and the family curse. Holmes sends Watson to Baskerville Hall with the heir, Sir Henry (Richard Greene), while he claims to be too busy. Watson finds the butler signalling to someone on the moor and hears howling at night; the hound kills an escaped convict wearing Sir Henry's clothes, and Holmes turns out to have been on the moor all along, disguised as a peddler.
How The Hound of the Baskervilles ends
The hound is a real, half-starved dog that the naturalist Jack Stapleton trained to attack Baskervilles by their scent. Holmes and Watson kill it just as it attacks Sir Henry. Stapleton traps Holmes in the hound's kennel and then poisons Sir Henry's medicine, but Holmes cuts his way out and destroys the poison in time, revealing that Stapleton is himself a Baskerville after the family fortune. Stapleton flees across the Grimpen Mire, with constables posted on every road.
No. 02 · 1939 · Film
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes recap
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) is Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's second film as Holmes and Watson and their last for 20th Century Fox, with George Zucco as Professor Moriarty. In 1894, Moriarty is acquitted of murder at the Old Bailey for lack of evidence and trades insults with Holmes on the courthouse steps. Ann Brandon comes to Baker Street because her brother has received the same drawing of a man with an albatross around his neck that her father received before he was murdered. Holmes is too late to save her brother, who is strangled, and goes undercover as a music-hall singer at a garden party to protect Ann.
How The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ends
Holmes catches Ann's attacker, Gabriel Mateo, who wanted revenge for his father's murder by Ann's father over a South American mine and was urged on by Moriarty. Holmes realises the Brandon case is a distraction from Moriarty's real target, the Crown Jewels, and races to the Tower of London, where Moriarty falls during their struggle, apparently to his death.
No. 03 · 1959 · Film
The Hound of the Baskervilles recap
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) is Hammer Films' version of Conan Doyle's novel, directed by Terence Fisher, starring Peter Cushing as Holmes, André Morell as Watson and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, and the first adaptation in colour. Dr. Mortimer asks Holmes to protect Sir Henry, newly arrived from South Africa to inherit Baskerville Hall after his uncle died of fright on the moor. A tarantula left in Sir Henry's hotel room convinces Holmes the threat is real, and he sends Watson to Dartmoor, where an escaped murderer is loose and one of two portraits of the wicked Sir Hugo has gone missing. Holmes arrives in secret, and the convict is killed by the unseen hound while wearing Sir Henry's clothes.
How The Hound of the Baskervilles ends
The missing portrait showed that Sir Hugo had webbed fingers, like the farmer Stapleton, who is a hidden Baskerville heir. Stapleton's daughter Cecile lures Sir Henry onto the moor, where the hound attacks him until Holmes shoots it. Watson wounds Stapleton, the hound mauls him to death, and Holmes kills it, revealing an ordinary dog in a mask. Cecile flees and sinks in the Grimpen Mire.
No. 04 · 1970 · Film
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes recap
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) is Billy Wilder's affectionate, slightly parodic film, written with I. A. L. Diamond, with Robert Stephens as Holmes and Colin Blakely as Watson, separating the real Holmes from the hero of Watson's stories in The Strand. In August 1887, a Russian ballerina asks Holmes to father her child, and he escapes by implying Watson is his lover. Then a Belgian woman, Gabrielle Valladon, is pulled from the Thames and asks Holmes to find her missing engineer husband. The search leads to Loch Ness, a group of monks, canaries and sulphuric acid carried into a castle, and an apparent sighting of the monster.
How The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes ends
The monster is a submersible that Holmes's brother Mycroft is building for the Royal Navy, and Gabrielle is really Ilse von Hoffmanstal, a German spy sent to steal it. Queen Victoria finds the vessel unsporting and orders it destroyed, so Mycroft rigs it to sink and lets the disguised German sailors take it. Months later, Holmes learns that Ilse was executed as a spy in Japan, and he retreats to his room and his cocaine.
No. 05 · 1984 · Series
Sherlock Holmes recap
Sherlock Holmes (1984 to 1994) is Granada Television's series starring Jeremy Brett, adapting 43 of Conan Doyle's 60 stories over 36 one-hour episodes and five feature-length specials, and widely seen as the most faithful Holmes on screen. David Burke plays Watson in the first run, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Edward Hardwicke from The Return of Sherlock Holmes onward. The episodes follow the stories closely, from A Scandal in Bohemia and The Speckled Band to The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four, set in a carefully recreated Victorian London.
How Sherlock Holmes ends
The first run ends with The Final Problem (1985), in which Holmes and Moriarty go over the Reichenbach Falls together, and The Return begins with The Empty House (1986), in which Holmes comes back to Baker Street. Later series, The Case-Book and The Memoirs, ran until April 1994, and the series came to an end with Jeremy Brett's death in 1995.
No. 06 · 1985 · Film
Young Sherlock Holmes recap
Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) imagines Holmes and Watson meeting as schoolboys, directed by Barry Levinson from a script by Chris Columbus, and featured the first fully computer-generated character in a feature film, made by Lucasfilm's Pixar group. John Watson transfers to Brompton Academy in London, where Holmes befriends him. Holmes loves Elizabeth, niece of the eccentric inventor Rupert Waxflatter. Men around the city are dying after a hooded figure shoots them with thorns that cause terrifying hallucinations, and after Holmes is expelled on a false charge of cheating, Waxflatter is killed the same way. Holmes, Watson and Elizabeth uncover Rame Tep, an Egyptian cult planning to sacrifice young women.
How Young Sherlock Holmes ends
The cult leader is the fencing master Professor Rathe, once an Egyptian boy whose parents were killed in the protests after the victims looted a royal tomb. Holmes and Watson fly Waxflatter's flying machine to the cult's hidden pyramid, rescue Elizabeth and burn it down, but Elizabeth is killed shielding Holmes from Rathe's bullet. Rathe falls into the frozen Thames. Holmes leaves for another school with a pipe from Watson, and an end-credits scene shows Rathe alive in Switzerland, signing a hotel register as "Moriarty".
No. 07 · 2009 · Film
Sherlock Holmes recap
Sherlock Holmes (2009) is Guy Ritchie's action mystery, with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes, Jude Law as Watson, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler and Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood. In 1890 London, Holmes and Watson stop Blackwood, who claims supernatural powers, from killing a sixth woman. Blackwood is hanged, but his tomb is found broken open and he seems to have risen from the dead. As Watson prepares to marry Mary Morstan and leave Baker Street, Holmes learns that Blackwood is the secret son of the head of an occult order and plans to use it to seize control of the British Empire, while Irene works for a mysterious professor.
How Sherlock Holmes ends
Blackwood's plan is to kill Parliament with cyanide gas, sparing his own allies who have the antidote, but Irene disarms the device. Holmes fights Blackwood on the unfinished Tower Bridge and explains that every "miracle" was science and trickery; Blackwood falls and is hanged in chains. Irene tells Holmes her employer is Professor Moriarty, who used the chaos to steal a radio component from the machine, and Holmes considers the case reopened.
No. 08 · 2010 · Series
Sherlock recap
Sherlock (2010 to 2017) is the BBC's present-day version, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, home from the army in Afghanistan. Thirteen episodes aired over four three-part series and a 2016 special. Sherlock and John share a flat at 221B Baker Street, John blogs their cases, and Sherlock becomes a reluctant celebrity. Their recurring enemy is Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott): series 2 ends with The Reichenbach Fall, in which Sherlock appears to die, and series 3 brings him back, introduces John's wife Mary, and ends with Sherlock shooting the blackmailer Magnussen and Moriarty's face on every screen in London.
How Sherlock ends
Series 4 ends with The Final Problem (2017): Sherlock and Mycroft's forgotten sister Eurus, a genius held in the island prison Sherrinford, puts Sherlock, John and Mycroft through deadly tests, and Sherlock saves John and finally reaches her. A message from Mary, who died earlier in the series, calls Sherlock and John her Baker Street boys, and the series closes on the two of them back at 221B, solving cases together.
No. 09 · 2011 · Film
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows recap
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) is Guy Ritchie's sequel, with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law returning, Jared Harris as Professor Moriarty, Noomi Rapace as the fortune teller Simza and Stephen Fry as Mycroft. In 1891, bombings blamed on anarchists are pushing France and Germany toward war, and Holmes has linked them to Moriarty, who has Irene Adler killed. Moriarty threatens Watson and Mary, so Holmes throws Mary off their honeymoon train to save her, and he and Watson follow Simza's missing brother across Paris and Germany to Moriarty's arms factory.
How Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ends
Moriarty owns shares in arms makers and wants a world war to profit from it. Holmes stops an assassination at a peace summit in Switzerland, and reveals he swapped Moriarty's coded notebook so his fortune has been seized and given to war widows. Facing defeat in a fight, Holmes pulls Moriarty with him over the Reichenbach Falls. After the funeral, Watson finishes his story and types "The End", and Holmes, hidden in his study, adds a question mark.
No. 10 · 2012 · Series
Elementary recap
Elementary (2012 to 2019) is CBS's modern version, created by Robert Doherty, with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson, over seven seasons and 154 episodes. After drug rehab, Holmes moves to New York, where his father makes him live with Watson, a former surgeon working as his sober companion. He consults for Captain Gregson's NYPD precinct, Watson becomes first his apprentice and then his partner, and the love of his life, Irene Adler, turns out to be Jamie Moriarty (Natalie Dormer).
How Elementary ends
In the last season, the tech billionaire Odin Reichenbach has Holmes's father murdered, and Holmes fakes his own death to see him convicted. In the series finale, three years later, Holmes comes out of hiding when Moriarty seems to threaten Joan, who has adopted a son and written a book about their partnership. Joan reveals she has cancer, Holmes stays in New York through her treatment, and a year later they are working together again.
No. 11 · 2015 · Film
Mr. Holmes recap
Mr. Holmes (2015) is Bill Condon's film of Mitch Cullin's novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, with Ian McKellen as a 93-year-old Holmes, Laura Linney as his housekeeper Mrs. Munro and Milo Parker as her son Roger. In 1947, the long-retired Holmes keeps bees in Sussex and is losing his memory. Unhappy with Watson's version of his last case, he tries to write the real one. With Roger's help he remembers it: about thirty years earlier he followed a grieving wife, Ann Kelmot, saw that she meant to take her own life, and sent her back to her husband instead of sharing her loneliness. She died anyway, and he retired.
How Mr. Holmes ends
Roger is badly stung, and Holmes realises wasps, not his bees, were to blame; Roger had been protecting the hives. At the hospital Holmes admits he was too afraid to open himself to Ann, and tells Mrs. Munro that she and Roger will inherit his estate. He writes his first piece of fiction, a kind letter to a Japanese man about the father who left him, and lays a ring of stones to remember the people he has lost.
No. 12 · 2016 · Film
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride recap
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016) is the BBC Sherlock special that puts Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the Victorian London of Conan Doyle's stories, and it won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie. In 1895, Emelia Ricoletti, in a wedding dress, shoots at passers-by and then herself, yet that night she kills her husband. When the Bride seems to strike again, Holmes is called in to protect Sir Eustace Carmichael, who is stabbed despite his watch. The case is happening inside the modern Sherlock's drug-fuelled mind palace, on the plane bringing him back after Moriarty's face appeared on every screen.
How Sherlock: The Abominable Bride ends
In the dream, the Bride's killings were the work of a secret society of women, who used a double to fake Emelia's death. Sherlock faces Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in his mind, and Watson kicks Moriarty over. Waking on the plane, Sherlock concludes that Moriarty really is dead but planned for others to carry on after him, as the Bride did. The Victorian Holmes ends by describing visions of aeroplanes and mobile phones to Watson.
No. 13 · 2020 · Film
Enola Holmes recap
Enola Holmes (2020) is Netflix's film of Nancy Springer's books, with Millie Bobby Brown as Sherlock's younger sister, Henry Cavill as Sherlock, Sam Claflin as Mycroft and Helena Bonham Carter as their mother Eudoria. On her 16th birthday, Enola finds that her mother, who taught her everything from chess to jujitsu, has disappeared. Mycroft plans to send her to finishing school, so she runs away to London disguised as a boy. On the train she meets the young Viscount Tewkesbury, on the run from a man in a brown bowler hat who is trying to kill him.
How Enola Holmes ends
Tewkesbury's own grandmother hired the killer, to stop him taking his seat in the House of Lords and voting for the Reform Bill; she shoots him, but armour under his clothes saves him, and she is arrested. Enola says goodbye to Tewkesbury and finds her mother waiting in her lodgings, proud of who Enola has become, before leaving again. Enola decides she is a detective, a finder of lost souls.
No. 14 · 2022 · Film
Enola Holmes 2 recap
Enola Holmes 2 (2022) sees Millie Bobby Brown's Enola open her own detective agency, inspired by the real 1888 match girls' strike. Young Bessie hires her to find her missing sister, Sarah Chapman, who worked at a match factory where girls are dying of what is called typhus. Enola follows clues to a theatre and a murder in Whitechapel, and is accused of the killing herself. Meanwhile Sherlock (Henry Cavill) is stuck on a blackmail case, and the two cases turn out to be one.
How Enola Holmes 2 ends
Enola and Sherlock find that the factory's sickness came from poisonous phosphorus and that Mira Troy, secretary to a government minister, is the blackmail's mastermind, Moriarty. Mira is arrested but escapes, and the corrupt superintendent dies in the fight. The match girls go on strike, Enola opens a new office, and Tewkesbury asks her to a ball.
No. 15 · 2026 · Film
Enola Holmes 3 recap
Enola Holmes 3 (2026) brings Millie Bobby Brown's Enola to Malta to marry Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), with Henry Cavill as Sherlock and Philip Barantini directing for the first time in the series. Sherlock is openly against the wedding, then disappears in the middle of a case. A dying soldier's last word leads Enola to Professor Adeline Rathe, an alias of Moriarty, who has escaped prison and spent a year arranging for the wedding to be held in Malta to lure Enola there. With Dr. Watson and the Maltese freedom fighter Mikiel Mizzi, Enola uncovers Afghan gold stolen by British officers and hidden on the island.
How Enola Holmes 3 ends
Enola overpowers Moriarty, and persuades Sherlock, who has been tortured, not to kill her; they arrest her instead. Tewkesbury's godfather, Brigadier Sampson, confesses to the theft, the gold is returned to Afghanistan, and Sherlock accepts Enola as his equal. Shaken by his father's part in the crime, Tewkesbury gives up his title, Enola keeps her own name, and their mother Eudoria marries them on a clifftop.
Common questions
What is the Sherlock Holmes story so far?
Sherlock Holmes has been on screen for more than a century, and none of the adaptations connect. Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective and his friend Dr. John Watson have been played by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in fourteen films from 1939, by Jeremy Brett in Granada's faithful series from 1984, by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law for Guy Ritchie, and by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in modern London. Enola Holmes follows his younger sister, and Mr. Holmes finds him retired at 93.
Where did Sherlock Holmes leave off?
Enola Holmes 3 (2026) is the latest. Enola overpowers Moriarty, and persuades Sherlock, who has been tortured, not to kill her; they arrest her instead. Tewkesbury's godfather, Brigadier Sampson, confesses to the theft, the gold is returned to Afghanistan, and Sherlock accepts Enola as his equal. Shaken by his father's part in the crime, Tewkesbury gives up his title, Enola keeps her own name, and their mother Eudoria marries them on a clifftop.
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