The definitive ranking of 70 feature-length Sherlock Holmes movies

Some of those ratings are—unusual, to say the least. Does #70 even count as a movie? Putting Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, admittedly not a great movie, as #68 makes little sense; putting the well-regarded A Study in Terror as #64 makes absolutely no sense. How is The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, the most affectionate Holmes movie ever made and Billy Wilder’s autumnal elegy (as Andrew Sarris perfectly phrased it), rated so low? Murder by Decree as #1? Terror by Night as #4? Yet somehow some of the weakest episodes of the Cumberbatch/Freeman Sherlock are high on the list?! Gah. Offhand, my least favorite serious Holmes flicks, even more than the Asylum one, are the Matt Frewer ones. Kenneth Welsh is a decent Watson, but Frewer may well give the worst Holmes performance ever. He’s unbelievably dreadful.

I should probably put my money where my mouth is (or some such metaphor…), so here’s my ranking of all the Holmes pictures I’ve seen that I can remember. Unfortunately, I’m leaving out the fantastic Jeremy Brett series, the almost-as-fantastic Ian Richardson TV movies, the horrible Frewer series, and the modern Sherlock because they weren’t released theatrically.

1. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)/Robert Stephens

2. The Scarlet Claw (1944)/Basil Rathbone

3. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)/Rathbone

4. The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)/Arthur Wontner

5. The House of Fear (1945)/Rathbone

6. The Pearl of Death (1944)/Rathbone

7. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)/Rathbone

8. Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)/Rathbone

9. The Spider Woman (1944)/Rathbone

10. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)/Barry Ingham (as “Basil of Baker Street”)

11. Murder by Decree (1979)/Christopher Plummer

12. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)/Nicol Williamson

13. Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)/Rathbone

14. Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)/Rathbone

15. The Woman in Green (1945)/Rathbone

16. Sherlock Holmes (2009)/Robert Downey Jr.

17. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)/Downey

18. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)/Rathbone

19. A Study in Scarlet (1933)/Reginald Owen

20. Dressed to Kill (1946)/Rathbone

21. Terror by Night (1946)/Rathbone

22. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)/Peter Cushing*

23. Silver Blaze/Murder at the Baskervilles (1937)/Wontner

24. Sherlock Holmes (1922)/John Barrymore

25. Pursuit to Algiers (1945)/Rathbone

26. A Study in Terror (1965)/John Neville

27. Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)/Christopher Lee

28. The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975)/Douglas Wilmer*

Some comments on my list: it leaves off Brett, perhaps the greatest Sherlock, unfortunately. It’s probably unfairly biased towards the Rathbone/Bruce series, but I just love those movies and can’t be too critical of them (except of the runt of the series, Pursuit to Algiers). I have yet to see Eille Norwood, William Gillette, and Raymond Massey (The Speckled Band, 1931); I have seen the Clive Brook movies but for the life of me can’t remember a thing about them (Everson liked them—though he cautioned they’re far from faithful to Doyle). Arthur Wontner is the third great Holmes, along with Rathbone and Brett, and should be more remembered. Even in the weakest entry in the series (Silver Blaze/Murder at the Baskervilles), his Holmes is excellent—though he emphasizes the kindness and avuncularity of the character, when compared with Brett’s bohemianism and moodiness (Rathbone finds a good middle ground). As for the *, Cushing and Wilmer showed that they could be wonderful Holmeses on television, as low as I’m rating their Holmes movies. (Though Murder by Decree isn’t bad—James Mason is an excellent Watson, for one thing—Plummer also gave us his best Holmes in Silver Blaze [1977] for Canadian TV.)