page_title: Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
section_title: Film
hierarchical_section_title: Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes / Film
caption_attribution_description: English: Still from the 1903 moving picture Sherlock Holmes Baffled.
context_page_description: The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four-volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
context_section_description: It has been estimated that Sherlock Holmes is the most prolific screen character in the history of cinema. The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1900. This was followed by a 1905 Vitagraph film Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom, with H. Kyrle Bellew and J. Barney Sherry in unlisted roles. It was long believed that the film starred Maurice Costello as Sherlock Holmes, but Leslie S. Klinger has written that the identification of Costello in the role is flawed. Klinger states that the first identification of Costello with the role was in Michael Pointer's Public Life of Sherlock Holmes published in 1975 but Pointer later realized his error and wrote to Klinger stating
  I am now aware that Maurice Costello could not have been in that film, as he had not joined the Vitagraph company by that date. I'm sorry that my book has been misleading, but I doubt that I shall have the opportunity for an amended reprint, and should not have the time to prepare one anyway.
  Many similar films were made in the early years of the twentieth century, most notably the 13 one- and two-reel silent films produced by the Danish Nordisk Film Company between 1908 and 1911. The only non-lost film is Sherlock Holmes i Bondefangerkløer, produced in 1910. Holmes was originally played by Viggo Larsen. Other actors who played Holmes in those films were Otto Lagoni, Einar Zangenberg, Lauritz Olsen, and Alwin Neuss. In 1911 the American Biograph company produced a series of 11 short comedies based on the Holmes character with Mack Sennett (later of Keystone Kops fame) in the title role.
  By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury, who had played Holmes on stage hundreds of times in Gillette’s play, reprised the role in the 1916 film The Valley of Fear.
  The next significant cycle of Holmes films were produced by the Stoll Pictures company in Britain. Between 1921 and 1923 they produced a total of 47 two-reelers, all featuring noted West End actor Eille Norwood in the lead with Hubert Willis as Watson.
  John Barrymore played the role in a 1922 movie entitled Sherlock Holmes, with Roland Young as Watson and William Powell in his first screen appearance. This Goldwyn film is the first Holmes movie made with high production values and a major star.
  Clive Brook played Sherlock Holmes three times: The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929), as part of an anthology film, Paramount on Parade (1930), and Sherlock Holmes (1932).
  In 1931 Raymond Massey played Sherlock Holmes in his screen debut, The Speckled Band, while Arthur Wontner played Holmes in five British films from 1931 to 1937.
  Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played Holmes and Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, which launched a 14-film series. Rathbone is regarded as the Holmes of his generation.
  In 1970 the film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes came out. In it Sherlock Holmes is portrayed by Robert Stephens, Dr. John H. Watson by Colin Blakely and Mycroft Holmes by Christopher Lee
  In 1971 the film They Might Be Giants (film) explores the premise of a deranged man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes, with a psychiatrist becoming his Watson.
  A film about Sherlock Holmes's early adventures as a child was released in 1985, called Young Sherlock Holmes.
  In 1986 Walt Disney, released an animated animal film The Great Mouse Detective which was based on the tradition of Sherlock Holmes.
  Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law portray Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson respectively in the film directed by Guy Ritchie in 2009, and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released in 2011.
  In 2015 Ian McKellen played a 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes in the film Mr. Holmes.
  A parody of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, titled Holmes & Watson, was released in late 2018, featuring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in the titular roles respectively.
caption: Sherlock Holmes Baffled, the first screen portrayal of Holmes from 1900.
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