Film

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Name: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 1939
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshal, Terry Kilburn

Other titles called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: the 1984 series (ITV1).

Rathbone's definitive Holmes faces Moriarty in a 1939 thriller that builds toward a grand confrontation. Stylish, atmospheric crime mystery with crisp dialogue and the perfect Watson. For anyone who loves their detective work elegant, their villains cultured, and their mysteries genuinely clever.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love brisk, old-fashioned detective puzzles where the pleasure is watching a sharp mind chase clues across a tight 85 minutes, with a dash of gaslit Victorian menace and a rivalry that crackles.

Skip it if you want modern pacing, gritty realism or a lot of interiority; this is stagey, quaint and very much a product of its 1939 studio craft, with creaky staging and broad performances.

What it asks of you: Very little. It runs about an hour and a half, moves briskly, and stays light on darkness, so you mainly need to pay attention to the clues and let the mannered 1930s style wash over you.

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The Big Sleep1946

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Murder on the Orient Express1974

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Great K&A Train Robbery1926

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A silent Western heist by Buster Keaton where the hero must solve a crime while the form itself does all the heavy lifting. Like Holmes but without words—pure observation, pure logic, pure visual problem-solving.

But It's a silent film from 1926. That's genuinely difficult viewing for audiences shaped by dialogue and sound. Requires active attention in ways modern cinema trains us not to give.

The Hound of the Baskervilles1939

Rathbone and Bruce in their element with one of Holmes's finest cases. Gothic atmosphere, genuine scares, and the perfect balance of supernatural dread and rational detection.

But Sharing an actor and era with the title film, it's almost too familiar. Not distinctive enough to feel essential if you've seen the original.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog1927

Hitchcock's silent thriller about Jack the Ripper fears and identity. Same period menace, same urban paranoia, same trust in visual storytelling to sustain mystery and suspicion.

But Silent film with intertitles requires patience and tolerance for slower storytelling conventions. The acting style feels histrionic now.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog poster

The Shanghai Gesture1941

Josef von Sternberg's sumptuous thriller in a gambling den where crime and obsession collide. Baroque atmosphere and moral corruption that matches Moriarty's world of elegant villainy.

But It's more mood and decadence than plot clarity. If you want clean narrative, you won't find it here.

The Thin Man1934

Powell and Loy solving a murder between martinis, with the same blend of sophistication, humour, and genuine mystery-craft. The original chemistry-driven detective couple that influenced decades of crime stories.

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Laura1944

A detective sifting through portraits and secrets, as much character study as mystery. The same elegant control of atmosphere, the same sense of intelligent people circling the truth.

But Depends on Otto Preminger's style, which some find cold. The mystery resolves in ways that feel arbitrary if you weren't paying attention early on.

Murder, My Sweet1944

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But It's gritty and morally murky in ways that contradict the gentlemanly code Holmes operates under. A very different register entirely.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan1982

Both films are about matched intellects in perfect opposition. Moriarty and Khan are the same villain: brilliant, egomaniacal, unable to accept a superior mind. The cat-and-mouse game is identical.

Spock and Kirk playing three-dimensional chess with Khan across vast distances. It's a mystery where the hero must anticipate his enemy's mind several moves ahead, the same psychological duel Holmes undertakes with Moriarty.

But It's science fiction spectacle. If you went to 1939 expecting drawing-room detection, this is the opposite register—starships, melodrama, the opposite of restraint.

Brick2006

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