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Sherlock Holmes - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Jan 11 2024

DerivativeWorks / Sherlock Holmes

The adaptation game is afoot.
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This page lists adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories and derivative works based on the character.

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Original works:

Original Sherlock Holmes Works 

Adaptations and derivative works:

Anime & Manga 

  • Her Majesty's Petite Angie (1977): This anime isn't particularly derivative of Sherlock Holmes in and of itself, but several dubbed versions called protagonist Angie Islington "Charlotte Holmes", and a British one added live-action segments with Sherlock Holmes.
  • Sherlock Hound (1984): An anime adaptation that recast the characters as Funny Animals and aired in 1984 and 1985.
  • Vampire Holmes (2015): An anime where Holmes is a vampire, as opposed to a detective.
  • Moriarty the Patriot (2016): Focuses on Holmes' archnemesis, James Moriarty, who is actually composed of three brothers sharing the same name. This version of Moriarty wants to destroy the British noble class.
  • Case File nº221: Kabukicho (2019): A modernized version set in Shinjuku, Japan. This version of Holmes is a fan of rakugo and explains his findings on the case in this manner.

Asian Animation 

Comic Books 

  • Batman: Batman meets Sherlock Holmes in Detective Comics #572, the 50th anniversary. In it, Batman travels to London to foil a plot by a descendant of Moriarty based on a previously untold adventure of Holmes. At the end of the adventure, the Dark Knight, and his allies encounter the ancient (but still very much alive) Sherlock.
  • Deadpool: Deadpool Killustrated, a sequel to Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, has Sherlock Holmes confronting Deadpool, who is killing every famous literary character in the Ideaverse. He even forms his own Avengers team consisting of his partner Dr. Watson, Hua Mulan, Beowulf and Natty Bumppo.
  • Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre: Sherlock Holmes is one of the characters recruited by Jay Gatsby to find a way to stop Godzilla.

Fanfiction 

A common urban legend is that Sherlock Holmes fanfics were so common as to make the writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation believe that the character, as well as his nemesis Professor Moriarty, were in the public domain when they made the episode "Elementary, My Dear Data", only to receive an angry letter from the Doyle estate. This is, unfortunately, not supported by the facts, but it makes a good story — students of urban legends will, of course, recognize some slight resemblance between this and the Neiman-Marcus Red Velvet Cake legend.

Sherlock Holmes was arguably one of the first franchises in the modern era to become almost as famous for its fanfiction as for its fiction. Holmes captured the imagination of many writers and spawned a considerable amount of unauthorized sequels or guest appearances — especially across the Atlantic, as the state of international copyright enforcement was largely nonexistent at the time. According to Victorian literature expert Jess Nevins, it was fairly common for penny-dreadful writers to write stories in which Sherlock Holmes is immediately murdered and a plucky young protagonist has to figure out who did it. Also, stories of the French character Arsène Lupin began as a Holmes copycat, but subsequently featured a renamed (by order of Conan Doyle's lawyers) version of Holmes himself.

Films — Animation 

Films — Live-Action 

  • Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900), silent film which lasts 30 seconds. Considered the earliest known detective movie due to Holmes's presence, even though the film was probably named so just for sake of using a famous name, and the character in the short has little to do with Holmes and doesn't do any detective work.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1916), starring William Gillette.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1921-1923). Stoll Pictures produced a series of 47 films, aiming to be faithful reproductions of the original canon. 45 of the 56 short stories were adapted as short films, with an additional 2 feature length entries dramatised from The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four respectively. Stage actor Eille Norwood played Holmes, with Hubert Willis playing Watson in all films except The Sign of Four, when Arthur Cullin took over the part. To this day, Norwood's portrayal is widely praised by Holmes aficionados, even earning acclaim from Arthur Conan Doyle himself.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1922), a.k.a Moriarty, starring John Barrymore, adapted from the play, Sherlock Holmes.
  • Lelíček in the service of Sherlock Homes (1932), Czechoslovak film that combines Sherlock Holmes with The Prisoner of Zenda. Holmes (played by Martin Fric) is hired by the Prime Minister of Portorico to find a double for their weak and cowardly king Fernando XXIII. Holmes finds Lelíček, a streetwise debt-plagued man from Prague (played by Czech comedy legend Vlasta Burian). Then, while Holmes dismantles a conspiracy against the king, Lelíček manages to survive several attempts on the "king's" life and falls in love with the queen.
  • A Study in Scarlet (1933)
  • Murder at the Baskervilles (1937)
  • The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (1937), German film. Two unsuccessful private detectives (played by Hans Albers and Heinz Rühmann) decide to drum up interest by dressing up as Holmes and Watson. They are met with great deference everywhere, solve the theft of valuable stamps, but are put on trial for impersonation, where they insist that they told everybody that they weren't Holmes and Watson. Conan Doyle is shown laughing his head off in the courtroom audience and mentioning that Holmes and Watson are fictional characters he invented, which means the movie must be set before 1930.
  • My Dearly Beloved Detective (1986). Soviet film. Not quite an adaptation, since Holmes and Watson are stated to be fictional in-story. However, two ladies with the last names of Holmes and Watson decide to enter the business...
  • Sherlock Holmes: Mare of the Night (2025), an upcoming two-part independent horror film starring Les Best as an old, psychologically broken Holmes.

Literature (post-Conan Doyle) 

  • "But Our Hero Was Not Dead" (1941): A short story by Manly Wade Wellman in which a by-then elderly Holmes and Watson stop a Nazi agent from setting up an invasion of England in 1940.
  • Solar Pons (1945-1998)
  • The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1954): A series of short stories wrote by Adrian Conan Doyle (son of Arthur Conan Doyle) and John Dickson Carr (Doyle's biographer and friend), supposedly the accounts of the many cases that Watson mentioned (but never elaborated on) in the original 56 short stories. Some consider it canon, since it was co-written by Arthur Conan Doyle's son, and treat it as the tenth volume of Sherlock Holmes canon, but many more don't for the obvious fact that it wasn't written or approved by Arthur Conan Doyle (it was written and published after his death) and it was co-written by an unrelated author. Sequels were expected but never produced, mainly because the authors got in a dispute over who wrote what.
  • In "Time Patrol" (1955), the first story in the eponymous series by Poul Anderson, the Victorian era office would like to hire a contemporary detective, but the only one clever enough is probably clever enough to figure out the Time Patrol. Other clues make it clear who this unnamed detective is.
  • Basil of Baker Street (1958-2020): Later adapted by Disney as The Great Mouse Detective. A Funny Animal version of the mythos, and many a child's first exposure to Sherlock Holmes. Basil's name is an obvious Shout-Out to Basil Rathbone. In the film, Rathbone himself even has a vocal cameo (albeit one well after his death) as Holmes himself.
  • Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1962): A popular tongue-in-cheek "biography" of Sherlock Holmes written by W.S. Baring-Gould, has been the source of many interesting theories about Holmes, some of which are often assumed to be canon (even in this very entry). These include the idea that the King of Bohemia was Edward VII; that Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler became lovers in Montenegro during the time Holmes was hiding from Moran, and that Irene returned to New Jersey to bear his child, a boy later known as Nero Wolfe note ; that Holmes in his twenties was a stage actor in a company that toured America; that he worked on the Jack the Ripper case; that Watson had three wives; that Holmes's bee-keeping in later years was intended as a way of producing royal jelly, then thought of as a "fountain of youth"; and that Holmes died in the 1950s after spending the war years - when he would have been roughly 90 years old - fighting Nazis. In The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, the title character, Siegerson, is named for Baring-Gould's Holmes pere. As a way of freeing up Sherlock and Mycroft for their various occupations while still ensuring they were members of the "right" class, Baring-Gould invented Sherringford, the eldest—and smartest—brother, who stayed home in Yorkshire to take care of the responsibilities of a country squire. Sherringford was Holmes's original name in Doyle's first draft of A Study in Scarlet.
  • Robert L. Fish's ridiculously pun-packed Schlock Homes stories (1959-1981), some of which were collected in The Incredible Schlock Homes (1965) and The Memoirs of Schlock Homes (1974). Shlock Homes and Dr. Watney of Bagel Street star in adventures with titles such as "The Adventure of the Printer's Inc.", "The Adventure of the Spectacled Band" (there is a Holmes adventure of the speckled band), "The Adventure of the Snared Drummer", "The Adventure of the Perforated Ulster", and "The Adventure of the Dog in the Knight".
  • Professor Moriarty Series (1974-2008)
  • The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974): Nicholas Meyer's novel (later adapted to film). The story proposed that the Moriarty stories were complete fictions invented by Watson to cover for Holmes's recovery from cocaine addiction. (This was to explain the canon's apparent contradiction of Moriarty dying in the story that introduced him, yet figuring in other prequel stories). In the story, Moriarty is revealed as Holmes's childhood maths tutor, whom Holmes had cast as a criminal in his drug-induced delirium. The story ends with a departing Holmes suggesting that Watson explain his absence to the readers by telling them he'd been murdered by his math tutor.
  • Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds (1975) by Manly Wade Wellman, in which Holmes, Watson, and Holmes's cousin Professor Challenger help to stop the War of the Worlds. Rather disliked by some fans for setting up a romance between Holmes and Mrs. Hudson.
  • The Giant Rat Of Sumatra (1976): Rick Boyer's novel explaining the Noodle Incident mentioned in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", in which the "giant rat" is actually a vicious rogue Sumatran tapir, captured and used to kill by Rodger Baskerville III, AKA Jack Stapleton, the still-living antagonist of The Hound of the Baskervilles who's out for revenge on both Holmes and another man whom he feels wronged him long ago, when he was running a school "in the north country".
  • The Infernal Device (1978): Michael Kurland's Moriarty novel and sequel books focused on Professor Moriarty as a Perspective Flip in which he is the protagonist.
  • The Holmes Dracula File (1978) by Fred Saberhagen, a Crossover novel where Sherlock Holmes meets Dracula. Also used to explain The Giant Rat of Sumatra.
  • The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) by Michael Dibdin. Sherlock Holmes investigates Jack the Ripper, who he suspects is his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Holmes is Jack. He's also Moriarty.
  • The Stalwart Companions (1978) by H. Paul Jeffers pairs a young Holmes with future US President Theodore Roosevelt, who also narrates the story.
  • Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (1978) by Loren D. Estleman
  • Trouble in Bugland: A Collection of Inspector Mantis Mysteries (1983) by William Kotzwinkle is Sherlock Holmes in "Bugland," where everyone is an insect. Holmes is Inspector Mantis, a praying mantis, and Watson is Doctor Hopper.
  • The Inspector Lestrade series (1985-2014) by M. J. Trow, portraying him as a skilled detective who is very irritated that John Watson chose to make him look like an idiot to make Holmes look good. The end of the third volume reveals that during a rest cure in the Swiss Alps, Holmes murdered a certain professor of mathematics under the impression the man was Watson.
  • The Doctor's Case (1993): A Sherlock Holmes pastiche contained in the short-fiction collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen King. A shipping magnate has been murdered in what Lestrade describes as "the perfect locked-room mystery"; Holmes and Watson investigate, and the solution takes an unusual and surprising turn.
  • Sherlock in Love (1993)
  • All-Consuming Fire (1994), a Doctor Who New Adventure crossing Holmes over with the Doctor, Ace and Benny. Written by Andy Lane, who went on to write the Young Sherlock Holmes novels in the 2010s. It was later adapted by Big Finish, who also made it a de facto crossover with their own regular Sherlock Holmes series, mentioned below.
  • Mary Russell (1994-2024): A Laurie R. King's series that takes place in the 1910s-20s. The title character, a young woman who comes to live on the Sussex Downs after being orphaned in a car accident, meets the retired Holmes there and becomes first his protege and later his wife.
  • O Xangô de Baker Street (1995; translated as A Samba for Sherlock, 1997) by Brazilian TV personality Jô Soares (a veteran TV comedian, now known for his David Letterman-style talk show). Holmes was described as knowing the Portuguese language, which helped him since he went to Brazil to try to figure out the identity of a serial killer. His portrayal in that book had him misinterpret clues. He failed, which was attributed to his lack of knowledge of how musical notes were known in Brazil. The culprit, whose identity was revealed to the readers, moved to England and was implied to be Jack the Ripper.
  • Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota (1996-2022): Series of books that places Sherlock and Watson in Minnesota, working with James J. Hill ​to solve crimes. Many historic characters such as Boston Corbett and incidents are included.
  • The Patient's Eyes (2002), The Night Calls (2003), and The Dark Water (2006): Three novels by David Pirie (the creator of Murder Rooms) featuring Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell as the detectives. Although the novels are self-enclosed, the larger plot arc remains unfinished.
  • A Study in Emerald (2003): A story by Neil Gaiman's that puts Sherlock Holmes characters in a Cthulhu Mythos setting, where the Earth is ruled by the Great Old Ones.
  • The Final Solution (2004): Novella by Michael Chabon's, in which Holmes (never named directly, but it is clearly him), a 90ish old man living in country retirement as a beekeeper, tries to locate a German Jewish boy's stolen parrot.
  • The Veiled Detective (2004) by David Stuart Davies is a twist on the canon by revealing "Watson" to be employed by Moriarty, who planted him in Baker Street to keep an eye on Holmes.
  • The Italian Secretary (2005)
  • Le Testament de Sherlock Holmes (2005) and sequels by Bob Garcia. For some reason they don't appear to be translated into English as of 2016, although they are available in a few other languages. A fair deal more horror than canon.
  • Enola Holmes (2006-2023): A series by Nancy Springer, which depicts the adventures of the much younger sister of Sherlock. On top of each mystery, the overall plot arc is the eventual reconciliation of the Holmes siblings as Enola finds that she is a match for her brother in every way for her age and Sherlock learns to admire his brilliant sister as a professional colleague.
  • Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot (2007): A compilation of short stories written by multiple authors
  • Aria the Scarlet Ammo (2008): Features one of the protagonists, Aria H. Kanzaki, as the great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. Then in Volume 5, Sherlock himself made his appearance as one of the antagonists.
  • The Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (2008)
  • Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson (2009): Written by Lyndsay Faye.
  • The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009-present), written by various hands and published by Titan Books.
  • The Sherlockian (2010)
  • The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes (2010), a Chinese children's book series.
  • Young Sherlock Holmes (2010-2015): Andrew Lane's series (not to be confused with the movie of the same name), chronicling a teenage Sherlock's adventures. These stand to be the only teen novels endorsed by the Doyle Estate.
  • The Case of Death and Honey (2011): Gaiman's other short story that ties together Sherlock's post-retirement bee-keeping and the canon Genre Shift story The Adventure Of the Creeping Man, portraying an elderly Sherlock trying to find a source of eternal youth.
  • The Hound of the D'Urbervilles (2011): By Kim Newman focuses on Professor Moriarty and his subordinate, Sebastian Moran, as they share a series of adventures that oddly echo Holmes's famous cases and have them meeting numerous other characters from Victorian and Edwardian fiction. The last story in the collection, "The Problem of the Final Adventure", retells "The Final Problem" from Moran's point of view.
  • The House of Silk (2011): By Anthony Horowitz, follows two crimes that end up closely linked, one where a family is being hounded by an American gang boss and another where Holmes searches for the elusive House of Silk. Notable in that it's the first novel that the Conan Doyle Estate has endorsed.
  • The Empire of Corpses (2012): Has Watson as the main character and still a medical student. In this story, he is tasked by the British government to retrieve Victor Frankenstein's notes which are the key to obtaining the souls of the dead.
  • Dead Man's Land (2012), The Dead Can Wait (2014), A Study in Murder (2015), The Sign of Fear (2016): Novels by Robert Ryan in which the primary detective is Watson, not Holmes. They're set during World War I.
  • Moriarty (2014)
  • Two Hundred and Twenty One Baker Streets (2014) is an anthology of stories re-imagining Holmes in many different times and places, from 17th century Scotland and 1970s New York to contemporary South Africa and a robot-populated far future.
  • Lock And Mori (2015)
  • Undead Girl Murder Farce (2015): Alongside other Victorian London characters, Holmes and Watson appear and play a major role in the second arc. Moriarty serves as the novels' overarching Big Bad.
  • Mycroft Holmes series (2015-2019) by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, about Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft Holmes.
  • A Study in Charlotte (2016)
  • Angels of Music (2016): A Massive Multiplayer Crossover that transposes the premise of Charlie's Angels in the 19th-century.
  • Warlock Holmes series (2016-2020) by G. S. Denning is an Affectionate Parody of the canon, in which Holmes is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander wizard over two centuries old whose mind is filled with demons, Watson is the actual brains of the outfit and (usually) Only Sane Man, and Lestrade is a vampire.
  • The Cthulhu Casebooks series (2016-2023) by James Lovegrove is a crossover between Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos.
  • Lady Sherlock series (2016-2024) by Sherry Thomas is about Charlotte Holmes, who invents the Sherlock identity in order to be taken seriously as a detective.
  • Sherlock Holmes Vs Cthulhu trilogy (2017-2019): Lois Gresh crossover with the Cthulhu Mythos.
  • The Irregular thrillers (2017-2020) by H.B. Lyle focus on Wiggins, the now grown up leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, as he becomes a secret service agent.
  • Arrowood series (2017-2021) by Mick Finlay follows one of Holmes's sleuthing rivals. Accompanied by his own Watson in the form of Norman Barnett, William Arrowood is a self-taught psychologist and private investigator who values understanding the psyche over physical evidence, and despises Holmes with a passion.
  • The Daughter Of Sherlock Holmes series (2017-2023) by Leonard Goldberg, about the adventures of Joanne Blalock - the illegitimate daughter of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler (the result of an unintended drug-induced one night stand rather than any sort of romance) - and John Watson, Jr in 1914 London.
  • Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Japan (2019): Written by Keisuke Matsuoka, it has Holmes going to Japan after defeating Moriarty in Reichenbach Falls and investigating a scandal that would ruin the fragile relations between the Meiji-era Japan and the Tsarist Russia. He also teams up with Hirobumi Ito, the first Prime Minister of Japan.
  • Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not (2019): An anthology of Elseworld stories where Holmes is paired with a doctor other than Watson.
  • The Angel of the Crows (2020)
  • The fanfiction and published pastiches of Marcia Wilson.
  • Denis O. Smith's The Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes is twelve new cases from Holmes' early years, in a fair imitation of Doyle's style.
  • Donald Thomas has published multiple short stories and novella pastiches featuring Holmes and Watson, most recently The Execution of Sherlock Holmes and Other New Adventures of the Great Detective.
  • Michael Hardwick (who had previously adapted one Holmes story for radio and two for television, and written the novelization of the film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) wrote two Holmes novels, The Prisoner of the Devil (1979, in which Holmes is called in to investigate the Dreyfuss Affair) and The Revenge of the Hound (1987, in which Holmes investigates a supposed return of the Hound of the Baskervilles). He later wrote The Private Life of Dr. Watson, Watson's memoirs of his life before meeting Holmes, and Holmes' own memoirs, Sherlock Holmes: My Life and Crimes.

Live-Action TV 

  • Sherlock Holmes (1951), the first regular TV series based on Holmes' exploits, airing on the BBC with Alan Wheatley as Holmes and Raymond Francis as Watson.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1954), a syndicated TV series filmed in France and starring Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford as Holmes and Watson.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1964), a series of adaptations in 1964-65 and 1968 starring Douglas Wilmer and later Peter Cushing as Holmes and Nigel Stock as Watson.
  • The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971, 1973) mentions Holmes by name in the title but is actually an anthology of other fictional detectives of the same period.
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979-1983). A Soviet series in Russian language notable for not flanderizing Watson into an idiot, being a generally faithful Adaptation Distillation and for the fact that the actor playing Holmes got an Order of the British Empire for his portrayal (surprisingly for a Soviet citizen). It's also provided fodder for a lot of Russian jokes (but then again, what doesn't?).
  • Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979-1980), a 24-part series with Geoffrey Whitehead and Donald Pickering as Holmes and Watson. The series' producer, Sheldon Reynolds, also produced the Ronald Howard version.
  • Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994), produced by Granada Television (ITV), starring Jeremy Brett, David Burke, and Edward Hardwicke. Generally considered to be most faithful to Conan Doyle's original vision of the character. Series one and two ran under then name The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, three and four The Return of Sherlock Holmes, five The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and six The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Five feature-length episodes were made and released between series, two based on the novels The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, three based on short stories turned into Adaptation Expansion.
  • Elementary, Dear Data (1988): A Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that featured one of the franchise's characters, Professor James Moriarty, as an antagonist. Due to some unexpected glitch in the Holodeck, he becomes self-aware, realizing that he is a hologram trapped in a simulation.
    • Ship in a Bottle (1993): Moriarty second appearance where he states that he is no longer the Moriarty of the books, having grown from that starting point due to his experiences on the Enterprise.
  • Wishbone adapted two Sherlock Holmes stories in two separate episodes (Sherlock Holmes is the only character whom Wishbone plays in more than one episode):
  • The Adventures of Shirley Holmes (1997-2000) was a Canadian series about the great-grandniece of Sherlock Holmes solving crimes.
  • Murder Rooms: The Dark Origins of Sherlock Holmes is a 2000 BBC series which featured not Holmes and Watson, but instead had the young Arthur Conan Doyle himself in the Watson role and expounded on the theory that the character of Holmes was a thinly-veiled stand-in for one of Doyle's medical school teachers, Professor Joseph Bell.
  • Sherlock (2010-2017): BBC series Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the series stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as Watson in a 21st-century Setting Update of the original stories. The show has been a critical and commercial smash hit both in the UK and abroad and cleaned up at the 2011 BAFTAs, including wins for Best Supporting Actor (Freeman) and Best Drama Series.
  • Elementary (2012-2017): CBS series starring Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson. Sherlock goes to New York City after becoming a heroin addict after a serious trauma while in London and meets Joan Watson, a sober companion hired by his father to help him in the post-rehab life. The main focus of the show is the growing relationship between Holmes and Watson as they solve cases together and works as a deconstruction of The Watson and the Sidekick tropes. Joan Watson is one of the protagonists, an aspiring consultant detective (ex-sober companion and ex-surgeon) and her insights are crucial to the story arc.
    • Watson (2025): Another CBS series created by Craig Sweeny (formerly a writer and producer on Elementary), but unrelated to Elementary continuity wise. It sees Dr. Watson (played by Morris Chestnut) resuming his medical career a year after Holmes' demise.
  • Sherlock Holmes (2013): A Russian 8-part TV series created by Andrey Kavun and starring Igor Petrenko as Sherlock Holmes and Andrey Panin as Watson. Subvert the original stories by forcing Watson to over-romanticise actual events that happen in the series because Watson's editor finds real life boring.
  • Miss Sherlock (2018), a Gender Flip version set in modern Japan produced by HBO Asia. Watson is depicted as "Wato Tachibana," a surgeon returning from a volunteer mission in Syria. Unlike most versions, Wato and Miss Sherlock take an immediate dislike to each other for their opposing personalities, and the two only become roommates at the prompting of Sherlock's brother, and Wato only joins Sherlock's cases to try and curb Sherlock's more unpleasant character traits.
  • Astrid (2019): Astrid Nielsen and Raphaëlle Coste were originally conceptualized as Gender Flipped versions of Holmes and Watson, which evolved into a Cop and Scientist show between a neurotypical police detective and an autistic documents specialist. Astrid quotes A Study in Scarlet in "Puzzle" (the "memory is not infinitely expandable" line) and The Sign of the Four in another episode.
  • Sherlock: Untold Stories (2019): A Japanese series released and set in Tokyo, following the adventures of Shishio Homare (a freelance crime consultant, played by Dean Fujioka) and Junichi Wakamiya (a psychiatrist, played by Takanori Iwata) as they partner up to solve crimes.
  • Sherlock in Russia (2020): Also known as Sherlock: The Russian Chronicles, is a Russian series that has Holmes (Maksim Matveyev) going to St. Petersburg, Russia to capture Jack the Ripper.
  • The Irregulars (2021): A Netflix-original series set in the Victorian era, follows a group of street urchins who are hired by Holmes and Watson to solve supernatural cases.
  • Mademoiselle Holmes (2024-): French series. Shy French cop Charlie Holmes is the great-granddaughter of Sherlock. She uses her hereditary deductive brilliance to solve crimes with the aid of Samy Vatel, her Watson substitute.
  • Sherlock & Daughter (2025-): Aired on The CW. Features a reclusive Holmes investigating a global conspiracy alongside Amelia Rojas, a young American woman who may be his daughter. David Thewlis stars as Holmes alongside Blu Hunt as Amelia and Dougray Scott as Moriarty.
  • Upcoming projects include:
    • Young Sherlock: A Prime Video production adapted from the Young Sherlock Holmes YA novels by Andrew Lane. The series is directed by cinematic Holmes veteran Guy Ritchie, and will star Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as Sherlock, with co-stars including Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone, Max Irons and Colin Firth.
    • Holmes: The Myth of Whitechapel: A Kickstarter funded short film, intended to function as a TV pilot. Inspired by the Frogwares games, the plot focuses on a younger Holmes and Watson (played by Jack Chambers and Harry Dillon respectively) in the early days of their partnership, as they investigate a series of disappearances in Whitechapel.
  • Miscellaneous TV films, miniseries and one-off episodes:
    • An episode of Father Dowling Mysteries had the good Father doubting his detecting skills when the police arrest the wrong man on his advice. This causes him to conjure up an image of his hero Holmes (Rupert Fraser) as a consulting detective to help him solve the case.
    • The 1976 NBC pilot The Return of the World's Greatest Detective starred Larry Hagman as Sherman Holmes, a bungling cop who comes to believe he is the Great Detective following a head injury, and has developed his deductive genius as a result. He is aided by his shrink Dr. Joan Watson (Jenny O'Hara).
    • The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977), a comedic TV special starring John Cleese as Holmes' grandson Arthur Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Lowe played Dr. William Watson, the original doctor's grandson.
    • In the Fantasy Island episode "The Case Against Mr. Roarke/Save Sherlock Holmes", the fantasy of Kevin Lansing (Ron Ely) was to assist Holmes (Peter Lawford) in an investigation. This results in him being placed in Edwardian London, with the objective of helping a bumbling Watson (Donald O'Connor) save the kidnapped detective from Moriarty (Mel Ferrer).
    • The Hound of the Baskervilles (BBC, 1982), with Tom Baker as the Great Detective. He claimed that the BBC apologised for both the production and his performance.
    • The Masks of Death, a 1984 film. Directed by Roy Ward Baker and co-written by Anthony Hinds, two Hammer Horror veterans. Peter Cushing played Holmes for the third and final time, alongside John Mills as Watson, Anne Baxter as Irene Adler, Ray Milland, Anton Diffring and Gordon Jackson.
    • The 1985 CBS Pilot Movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes had Michael Pennington as the great detective, thawed out in modern times by Watson's American female descendant Jane (Margaret Colin). In 1993, CBS produced another film with a very similiar premise entitled Film/1994BakerStreetSherlockHolmesReturns, starring Anthony Higgins as the great detective and Debrah Farentino as Dr. Amy Winslow.
    • The episode "My Dear Watson" from The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents focused on Holmes (Brian Bedford) and Lestrade (John Colicos) as they try to locate a kidnapped Watson (Patrick Monckton).
    • Sherlock Holmes: The Golden Years was a duology of miniseries featuring Christopher Lee as the fifty-six-year-old Holmes and Patrick Macnee as the fifty-eight-year-old Watson. The two miniseries included Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and Incident at Victoria Falls and featured appearances by historical domain characters such as Sigmund Freud, Elliot Ness, Lillie Langtry, Theodore Roosevelt and, an appearance by A. J. Raffles, the famed creation of Doyle's brother-in-law E. W. Hornung. Leading Lady guest starred Morgan Fairchild as Irene Adler.
    • The 1993 Canadian telefilm The Hound of London starred Patrick Macnee as the great detective, making him one of the few actors to have played both Holmes and Watson.
    • Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh starred in four Hallmark Channel films released from 2000 to 2002: The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of Four, The Royal Scandal and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire.
    • Sherlock: Case of Evil (2002): A USA Network film starring James D'Arcy as a younger Holmes, with Gabrielle Anwar as love interest Rebecca Doyle, and Vincent D'Onofrio as Moriarty.
    • In 2002, the BBC released a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and Ian Hart as Watson. Hart returned for the 2004 film "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking'', with Rupert Everett succeeding Roxburgh as the detective.
    • Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars (2007): A drama focusing on the titular teenage street urchins, starring a then-unknown Aaron Taylor-Johnson as lead irregular Finch, Jonathan Pryce as Holmes, Bill Paterson as Watson and Anna Chancellor as a more villainous Irene Adler.
    • The Ghostwriter episode "The Case of The Missing Ghost" features gender-swapped versions known as Shirl Holmes and Joan Watson.

Radio, Audio and Podcasts 

  • Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio) (1989 to 1998) starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. This production is notable for adapting every novel and short story with the same pair of actors playing Holmes and Watson. Merrison's performance has some marked similarities to Brett's. It was so popular that a series of pastiches called The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was commissioned which ran for four seasons. Merrison reprised his role as Holmes, but since Michael Willimas had passed away, Andrew Sachs (of Fawlty Towers fame) replaced him as Watson.
  • William Gillette, famous for playing Holmes on stage also played in two separate radio plays. The first was an adaptation of "The Speckled Band" and the second was an adaption of his famous play for Lux Radio Theatre. Sadly both performances have been lost to time, although an excerpt from the play that was recorded in 1936 by the 82 year old Gillette does survive.
  • The Mercury Theatre on the Air: Orson Welles played Holmes in adaptation of Gillette's melodrama in an episode.
  • The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: After the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce reprised their famous film roles, which despite the title was a mix of adaptations of Conan Doyle's stories and new pastiches. Several are available here [1]).
  • BBC Radio has done numerous Holmes dramas over the years. Amongst the most famous are:
    • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1954-55), a 16 episode series starring Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson. The show was co-produced with ABC Radio which meant that Orson Welles guest-starred as Professor Moriarty.
    • Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley played Holmes and Watson in over 80 different dramas from 1952 to 1969.
  • Blackstone Audio's The Hollywood Theatre of the Ear did a boxset called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Theater which featured Martin Jarvis as Holmes and Kristoffer Tabori as Watson. It featured two classic stage adaptions of Holmes: William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes, which also featured Tony Jay as Professor Moriarty, Doyle's own adaption of The Speckled Band, and an original parody by Yuri Rasovsky entitled Ghastly Double Murder in Famed Detective's Flat.
  • Big Finish, most famous for their extensive range of Doctor Who audio plays, have been producing a series of Sherlock Holmes dramas. Besides the regular series, set between canon stories, one is set during Holmes' elderly years after the passing of Dr. Watson, one is a metafictional tale in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Professor Moriarty conspire against Holmes, and another pits Holmes against Jack the Ripper. The Great Detective is played by Roger Llewellyn (in his old age) and Nicholas Briggs (in the regular episodes). Richard Earl voices Watson to Briggs's Holmes.
  • Holmes, voiced again by Briggs and seemingly the same version from the Big Finish audio series, appears in ''The Confessions of Dorian Gray" story "Ghosts of Christmas Pasts".
  • The 2015 audio adaptation of All-Consuming Fire also had Briggs and Earl voice Holmes and Watson.
  • And the Bernice Summerfield audio The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel had David Warner as Mycroft Holmes, a role he then reprised opposite Briggs and Earl in The Adventure of the Bloomsbury Bomber (part of the Worlds of Big Finish Cross Through).
  • A very abridged 2017 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles from indie Canadian company Bleak December, with Derek Jacobi as Holmes.
  • Amazon's audiobook service Audible, has produced several Holmes-based audio plays in recent years:
    • Sherlock Holmes: The Voice of Treason (2020), an original tale by George Mann and Cavan Scott, with Nicholas Boulton as Holmes and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Watson.
    • A 2021 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles also by Mann and Scott. Stars Colin Salmon as Holmes, Stephen Fry as Watson and Meera Syal as Canon Foreigner Mother Greep.
    • Clockwork Sherlock (2021), an audiobook written by Ian W. Sainsbury and read by Shvorne Marks. Captain Jo Barnes becomes the Watson substitute alongside a VR version of Holmes.
    • Moriarty: The Devil's Game (2022). A 10-episode scripted podcast by Charles Kindinger depicting Moriarty as an innocent mathematics professor, who becomes a fugitive after being falsely accused of murder. The production stars Dominic Monaghan as Moriarty, Billy Boyd as Colonel Sebastian Moran and Phil Lamarr as Sherlock Holmes, with Adam Godley as Dr. Watson, Curtis Armstrong as Inspector Gregson, Josh Robert Thompson as Inspector Lestrade, and Rebecca Mader as Mary Watson.
    • The Baker Street Four (2023). An adaptation of the graphic novel series by Olivier Legrand, J.B. Djian, and David Etien. Starring Paterson Joseph as Holmes and Bill Nighy as Watson the cat.
  • Overton Audios' Sherlock Holmes (2021-present): set in the 1920s.
  • Sherlock & Co., released in 2023 by Goalhanger Productions, provides a Setting Update to the modern day and reimagines Watson as a true crime podcaster.
  • Fawx & Stallion focuses on Hampton Fawx and James Stallion, fellow Baker Street residents, and rival consulting detectives who live across the street at number 224B. When Holmes and Watson leave town on business, Fawx and Stallion get the chance to finally prove themselves when their own case falls into their laps.
  • Baker Street 2033 sees the fictional Holmes becoming a "real" 3D bioprint, as he unravels a mystery in 2030s London.
  • Sherlock Holmes is Real (2017-present): A mockumentary focusing on a conspiracy theory that the entire Holmes canon is a fictionalisation of real events.
  • The Watson Files (2010-2013): A homage to the The New Adventures radio series, focusing on Spencer Holmes and Jack Watson, the grandchildren of the original duo.

Tabletop Games 

Theatre 

  • Sherlock Holmes, 1899 play written by and starring William Gillette. It featured an original plot. Years later, Orson Welles would adapt the play for The Mercury Radio Theater with the explanation that, "It is not enough to say that William Gillette looks like Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes looks exactly like William Gillette." It was Gillette, and not Doyle, who popularized most of the visual tropes associated with the character to this day such as the deerstalker cap, the distinctive pipe and riding cloak. His iconic attire was originally depicted by Sidney Paget, who illustrated the stories for their initial publication in Strand Magazine, but he only put Holmes in them in appropriate situations: when the story took him out of London, and into the countryside.
  • The Speckled Band - adapted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.
  • The Crucifer of Blood - An adaptation by Paul Giovanni which was based on The Sign of Four. It was made into a TV movie in 1991 featuring Charlton Heston as Sherlock Holmes (he had played the role previously in an LA production of the play, and Jeremy Brett was his Watson).
  • The Secret of Sherlock Holmes - Starting in 1988, Jeremy Brett and his second Watson, Edward Hardwicke, starred in this stage production. It was written by Jeremy Paul, who scripted many episodes of the Granada Television series.
  • Charles Marowitz's black comedy Sherlock's Last Case, in which Watson has been so Driven to Madness by Holmes' nastiness that he tries to murder him. That goes so badly that poor Watson is Driven to Suicide instead.
  • There have been several Holmes musicals over the years, including:
    • Baker Street (1965, music by Marian Grudeff, Raymond Jessel and Jerry Bock, lyrics by Grudeff, Jessel and Sheldon Harnick, book by Jerome Coopersmith)
    • Sherlock Holmes: The Musical aka The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes (1988, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse)
    • Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Crown Jewels (2015, book, music and lyrics by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman)
    • Sherlock: The Musical (2022, music and lyrics by Denning Burton, book by Burton and Stefan van de Graaff)
    • Sherlock Holmes and the Poisonwood (2024, music by Ben Glasstone, book by P Burton-Morgan, lyrics by Burton-Morgan and Glasstone)
    • Sherlock Holmes And The Twelve Days of Christmas (TBA, music and lyrics by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, book by Humphrey Ker and David Reed.)
  • Takarazuka Revue scriptwriter and director Hirokazu Ikuta is a hardcore Holmesian responsible for at least two shows:
    • Sherlock Holmes -The Game Is Afoot!- (Cosmos Troupe, 2021): Holmes uncovers the truth behind the murders of Jack the Ripper: Moriarty has been collaborating with the British government to conduct covert assassinations. This puts him directly into Moriarty's path, and together with Irene Adler, Holmes must foil the criminal mastermind's plot to destabilize England.
    • Boiled Doyle on the Toil Trail (Snow Troupe, 2023-2024): A meta show akin to Finding Neverland chronicling Doyle's relationship with Holmes as a fictional character and an author since A Study in Scarlet. Doyle struggles with the "deal with the Devil", the overwhelming fame of Holmes, and the resultant subsuming of his identity.
  • Miss Holmes and Miss Holmes Returns are a pair of What If? stage plays depicting an Alternate Universe in which Holmes and Watson were born as women instead of men.

Video Games 

  • Sherlock Holmes series of puzzle/adventure games, which has been developed by Frogwares since 2002.
  • The Great Ace Attorney note 
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles: a hidden object game where Holmes and Watson help Henry Baskerville solve the mystery of the curse surrounding the family and the mythic Hound, the key clue being a mysterious medallion.
  • Fate/Grand Order is an unusual example - while he's not the focus character, Holmes is introduced as a major character in the game's sixth story chapter and joins the main cast, regardless of the player's status in obtaining him as a playable Ruler-class "Servant" party member, in the course of the Epic of Remnant expansion and the Cosmos in the Lostbelt arc. James Moriarty makes a similar debut in the first EoR chapter as an Archer-class Servant and makes further appearances later on.
  • Crimesight (2022): An online co-op mystery simulation game by Konami where four players get to play as an A.I. based on Sherlock, Watson, Irene and Moriarty.
  • Inverse Ninjas VS. The Public Domain (2023): A top-down shooter Party Game developed by Herosoft and Trainwreck Studios, featuring various Public Domain Characters, including the Great Detective himself.
  • The Beekeepers Picnic (2025): A retro point-and-click adventure featuring a retired Holmes in 1920s Sussex.

Webcomics 

  • While the actual storyline itself never came to fruition, Erin confirms that Sherlock Holmes is part of the And Shine Heaven Now canon: Watson had wrote a book about a time when he and Sherlock crossed paths with Count D, but he shelved it because he knew no one would believe it due to the more supernatural elements and he wanted to be taken seriously as an author. However, the manuscript survived in some fashion, as Integra had been told it as a bedtime story.
  • Consulting Detectives
  • Signs Of Three, a webcomic adaptation updating the stories to contemporary times, adding more diversity and LGBT themes whilst simultaneously putting a modern twist on things. Currently on one finished book, A Study of Scarlett (A Study in Scarlet), with the second, Fangs of Sussex (The Sussex Vampire) having just begun.
  • Whatever Remains is a webcomic adaptation set in the 1920s.
  • Watson's Sketchbook is part faithful translation of the original canon, and part queer retelling.

Western Animation 

  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: "The Adventures of Sherlock Mario" is one big parody of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with the detective being named Herlock Solmes, King Koopa's alter-ego of the episode being named Professor Kooparity, and Mario being bit at the end of the episode by the Killer Kitty of the Kaskervilles.
  • In the early eighties, Australia's Burbank Films, an animation studio that did adaptations of literary classics, released four hour-long adaptations of the Holmes novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, renamed The Baskerville Curse, and The Valley Of Fear) with Peter O'Toole voicing Holmes.

Fan films, short films and web originals