Every Sherlock Holmes adaptation, in one list
All 29 of them, spanning 1939 to 2026: editions of the canon, faithful adaptations, modern reinventions, new cases with the old characters, and things that borrowed the detective and changed his name. Grouped by how you’d take each one in, oldest to newest inside each group. Every entry has its own guide.
A note on “faithful”: Holmes is sixty stories, and no version covers them all. On this site a faithful version is one that keeps the manner — the period, the tone, deduction you can follow, the balance between Holmes and Watson — not one that adapts the most plots.
Read
The Complete Novels and Stories, Bantam Classics (two volumes)1986
All four novels and all fifty-six stories, in two fat paperbacks.
Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution1993
Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud, on the same case.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. Leslie S. Klinger2004
The whole canon with a scholar at your elbow and hundreds of period illustrations.
Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk2011
A new Holmes novel in Watson’s voice, written at the Conan Doyle Estate’s invitation.
Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice2014
Retired Holmes, keeping bees in Sussex, takes on a fifteen-year-old apprentice.
Sherlock: A Study in Pink (manga, Titan, 2017)2017
The first BBC episode, drawn as manga and read right to left.
Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes Mysteries2020
The books the Netflix films came from, written for readers eight to twelve.
Moriarty the Patriot (manga, VIZ, 2020–)2020
The villain’s side: young William Moriarty against Britain’s class system.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Oxford World’s Classics2023
One complete novel, a moor, a curse, and a beginning, middle and end.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Oxford World’s Classics2025
The twelve stories that made him famous, and the place most people should start.
Watch
The Basil Rathbone films (1939–1946)1939
Fourteen films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, made between 1939 and 1946.
Sherlock Holmes, Granada Television (1984–1994)1984
Jeremy Brett, forty-one episodes, and the stories told straight in period.
Young Sherlock Holmes1985
Holmes and Watson meet at boarding school, a few weeks before Christmas, 1870.
Without a Clue1988
Watson is the genius, and Holmes is an actor he hired.
House (Fox, 2004–2012)2004
Hugh Laurie as a diagnostician with Holmes’s method and a Wilson for a Watson.
Sherlock Holmes (2009) and A Game of Shadows2009
Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, Victorian London, and a lot of punching.
Sherlock (BBC, 2010–2017)2010
Cumberbatch and Freeman, and the canon moved to present-day London.
Elementary (CBS, 2012–2019)2012
Holmes in present-day New York, in recovery, with Lucy Liu’s Joan Watson.
Mr. Holmes2015
Ian McKellen as Holmes in old age, trying to remember his last case.
Miss Sherlock (HBO Asia, 2018)2018
Tokyo, two women, and the first case moved to the present.
Enola Holmes 1–3 (Netflix, 2020–2026)2020
Millie Bobby Brown as Sherlock’s younger sister, with Henry Cavill as Sherlock.
The Irregulars (Netflix, 2021)2021
The Baker Street street kids, a supernatural London, and Holmes at the margins.
Watson (CBS, 2025–2026)2025
Morris Chestnut as Dr. John Watson, running a clinic for rare diseases after Holmes is gone.
Young Sherlock (Prime Video, 2026)2026
Guy Ritchie’s origin story, with Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Holmes before he was anybody.
Listen
Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen Fry (Audible, 2017)2017
The canon read aloud by Stephen Fry, with his own introductions.
Sherlock & Co. (Goalhanger podcast, 2023–)2023
The canon retold as a true-crime podcast that Watson makes about his flatmate.
Play
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (Frogwares, 2014)2014
Six cases where you name the culprit yourself, and decide what happens to them.
The Sherlock Holmes Escape Book: The Adventure of the London Waterworks2019
An escape room in a paperback: you are at 221B, and every page is a lock.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Capcom, 2021)2021
A rookie Japanese lawyer in late-nineteenth-century England, and a great detective called Herlock Sholmes.
Also out there, and not the pick
These come up whenever Holmes does. None of them is on the list above, and here is the reason for each.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (Lenfilm, 1980s)
The Soviet television films with Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as a Watson who is his equal. They are listed here rather than offered because they are hard to get in English: we found no US release on disc or download, what Amazon lists are imported Russian DVD sets, and we could not confirm an official free stream. If a licensed English release turns up, it moves up the page.
Start with the stories
Where to start reading puts the complete sets, the annotated edition, the audiobook and the two single volumes side by side.