Mr. Holmes (2015)
Ian McKellen as Holmes in old age, trying to remember his last case.
After sixty cases, the thing left to do with that mind is to watch it fail.
You want one quiet, sad, well-acted film about what is left of Holmes at the end.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the retirement to Sussex that the canon promises, and Holmes’s irritation at how Watson wrote him.
Changes: the shape of a Holmes story. It is 1947, the case is thirty years old, and the mystery is his own memory.
Whose story is it?
Holmes’s, alone, at the end.
How much time does it ask?
A Miramax film directed by Bill Condon, 1 hr 44 min.
Laura Linney plays his housekeeper; Milo Parker plays her son.
Where to find it
Other ways to get it: Blu-ray — Amazon · Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch
More versions: Sherlock Holmes, Granada Television (1984–1994) · Sherlock (BBC, 2010–2017) · Sherlock Holmes (2009) and A Game of Shadows (2011)