The 15 Best Dr. Watsons, Ranked

Sherlock Holmes ranks among the most adapted literary characters of all time — in competition with Dracula, Alice (in Wonderland), Frankenstein’s Monster, and Jesus. But while these others come from text with rich, iconic supporting characters, Sherlock is the only one who feels incomplete without his loyal companion; we may only understand famous literary characters by their relationships to other characters (or the reader), but any attempt to understand Sherlock Holmes without the help of Dr. John Watson rings a little false.

As the rational and oft-flabbergasted physician who narrates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, Watson is the looking glass into Holmes’s intellectual superpowers. But he’s also Sherlock’s link to normal, emotional human life. They are each other’s lifeline, the OG buddy-cop dynamic, and a Very Victorian example of men appreciating and depending on each other. Victorian men will literally look at Holmes and Watson and say, “Hell yeah!”

The function of Watson’s presence is altered in his translation from book to screen — in TV and film, it’s not necessary or convenient to filter the story through a first-person point of view — but 138 years since his first appearance, Watson has yet to lose his narrative usefulness. He is no rival to challenge Holmes’s detective prowess, but he is far more central than a lame, loyal sidekick; he is a classic foil, channeling and amplifying the immediate emotional experience of cryptic mysteries revealing their constituent parts. Whether he’s a narrator, scene partner, or the human drama to Holmes’s cool, unfeeling persona, our Watson must reflect the tension and catharsis of the investigation. Holmes is disinterested in explaining himself to anyone — that is, anyone except his dear Dr. Watson.

As everyone with the barest understanding of modern fandom understands, the dramatic dynamic of a superintelligent person who dislikes everyone but the dependable audience surrogate engenders a keen sense of intimacy. In CBS’s Watson, set to premiere this weekend, that intimacy has been severed. A year after Holmes lost his life to Moriarty, Dr. John (Morris Chestnut) is picking up the pieces in Pittsburgh, where his specialist clinic hopes to carry on his late friend’s legacy — probably by hyperfocusing on innocuous details and reaching far-fetched but rarely incorrect conclusions. As the network procedural mounts the argument that Watson can thrive without Holmes, we ranked 15 portrayals of Watson in film and TV that defined and redefined the character beyond Arthur Conan Doyle’s pages.

Kyle Mooney, Epic Rap Battles of History (2013)

Credit to Epic Rap Battles of History: This two-minute rap between Sherlock Holmes and Batman, from season two of the comedy web series, captures the loyalty and reverence that characterizes Dr. Watson by casting him as an eager hype man (even if, in retrospect, it was a little early in the show’s tenure to feature two non-historical characters). Future Saturday Night Live alum and Y2K director Kyle Mooney briefly donned the role popularized by world-class dramatic talent to echo and underline Holmes’s withering put-downs. Even within the limits of internet sketch comedy, Mooney illustrates how much Holmes’s appeal is grounded in his close companion acting as a vocal mouthpiece and reactive springboard for our own excitement and awe. If Conan Doyle’s version of the character knew what a rap battle was, he’d probably act like Mooney does here, instead of reacting with “I say!” or “By heavens!”

Robert Duvall, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

Herbert Ross’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution may be the most prestigious and noteworthy of the Sherlock Holmes fan-fiction films; screenwriter Nicholas Meyer received an Oscar nomination for adapting his own pastiche novel. This is the hook: Watson delivers Holmes to none other than Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) to cure his cocaine addiction, and together they uncover a kidnapping that threatens to start World War I early. It’s a delicious romp that nevertheless grades pretty poorly on this list’s unique criteria. Nicol Williamson’s manic, feverish rendition of Holmes is matched by the quiet confidence of Arkin’s Freud, but there just isn’t any space for Robert Duvall’s Dr. Watson to make a meaningful impression. His strained, forced English accent is distractingly poor and nearly always disrupts the chemistry of his more locked-in co-stars, even if his characterization of a caring, resourceful partner rings true. His performance evokes the same vibes as Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s divisive but memorable appearance in Nosferatu.

Hubert Willis, Silent-Era Films (1921–1923)

Hubert Willis had the honor of playing Watson while the character’s author was still alive (Conan Doyle died in 1930, three years before Willis allegedly passed). He appeared in 45 short-film adaptations and the 1922 feature-length Hound of the Baskervilles during the silent era. Alas, not much information is available on Willis, and most critical discussion of these Stoll Film Studios shorts focuses on Eille Norwood’s expressive and assured Holmes. Watson doesn’t get a terrific amount of action, but it’s interesting to see how their dynamic translates to silent-film theatrics — Willis must physically externalize the confusion and surprise felt before and after Sherlock’s epiphanies and explanations, and he does it effectively whenever needed. Some of the films are available to watch in diminished resolution online; Willis’s performances are included here as an appreciation of their quantity and antecedence, rather than standout quality.

Colin Blakely, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

Billy Wilder’s career never truly recovered from the upheaval of the studio system, and despite the director’s love of the character, his spin on the truth and myths of Sherlock Holmes was upset by a troubled production and the studio cutting a third of the filmed material. A three-hour anthology film of Holmes self-critique while dancing around admitting his homosexuality is the type of audacious pitch for a road-show picture that’s destined to be bungled by risk-averse execs, and the released version does Wilder’s imagination no favors. As Holmes, Robert Stephens has fun purposefully winding up his less witty peers and shares good chemistry with Christopher Lee’s Mycroft — but the insisted light-comedy tone leaves Colin Blakely’s Watson with nothing to do but react incredulously and pantomime astonishment. Blakely’s performance is indicative of The Private Life’s problems — the attempt to pastiche and complexify the popular understanding of this literary relationship ends up re-creating its most irritating qualities.

Nigel Bruce, Golden Age Films (1939–1946)

History has been long divided on Nigel Bruce’s residence as Dr. Watson. While his co-star Basil Rathbone enjoys a legacy as one of the most definitive Sherlocks, critics have been outspoken on what they see as a cheapening of the character — turning him from a capable companion to a dim, bumbling comic foil. We don’t want to reduce his importance too much: Bruce is an able, affable performer who shares great chemistry with Rathbone and defined the Watson role for a broad audience — something many performances ranked higher cannot claim. Still, we prefer Dr. Watsons who possess a sharper, more sensitive acumen than Bruce’s version of the character. Like, is this really the bedside manner we want Dr. Watson to have?

Joanne Woodward, They Might Be Giants (1971)

If you’re wondering why you never knew that George C. Scott played Sherlock Holmes, it’s because he didn’t exactly do that. Scott is Justin Playfair, a widower judge who has suffered a nervous breakdown and is utterly convinced he is the fictional Holmes, never breaking character. By unfortunate coincidence, the psychiatrist assigned to his case is named Dr. Watson (Joanne Woodward), which further encourages Playfair to embrace his fantasy. The farcical anti-mystery plot opens up the sharp, intellectual Watson to a world of chaos and abandon, and while the whole thing reeks of a play that closed after four weeks, Woodward’s performance jumps between confidence and mania with impressive ease; she convincingly portrays someone who learns and accepts in real time why the fictional Watson so admires his partner.

Jude Law, Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows (2009–2011)

One of the major charms of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films is that, despite the silliness of the Victorian-era martial arts and boyish bickering, there’s a dramatic baseline to Robert Downey Jr.’s and Jude Law’s performances — a buddy-cop dynamic where one seems genuinely unhinged and the other cares deeply and sensitively. There’s little Victorian stuffiness to this Watson, and much of the character’s bumbling passivity from previous adaptations has been shorn off to make room for modern, urgent frustration. Because Downey’s Holmes is more manic than usual, Watson has to look out for him more actively — this greater concern for survival is a good fit for the beautifully implausible action sequences in which Ritchie indulges. This is also as dashing as Dr. Watson gets.

David Riley, Frogwares Sherlock Holmes Series (2004–2012)

“The game is afoot” in more ways than one in Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Ukrainian game developer Frogwares. Starting with The Case of the Silver Earring and concluding with The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, English voice actor David Riley took up the Watsonian mantle, serving as narrator and encouraging assistant for Sherlock’s sleuthing — which did include fighting Cthulhu, Jack the Ripper, and Arsène Lupin. Voice-only performances of Holmes and Watson date back to 1930 (in radio serials, not video games), and Riley joins the historic tradition with a performance that’s convincing and endearing, lending Watson an emotive, classic quality that invites the player to navigate the mystery themselves. You’ll have to play the original games to hear Riley as Watson; Frogwares has diligently remastered select titles with a new voice cast.

Ben Kingsley, Without a Clue (1988)

It’s difficult to know where to place Ben Kingsley’s Dr. Watson, because this version of the character is the most intelligent — yet inaccurate — one so far. In a twist on the standard premise, this British comedy posits that Watson is actually the deductive genius and Holmes is a witless paid actor hired to appease Watson’s readers in The Strand Magazine. Michael Caine is superb as a humorous deconstruction of how much Holmes relies on rhetoric and confidence. But there’s a lot to admire about Kingsley, who is basically playing Holmes if he had to live the modest, humble existence of Dr. Watson. It may not count as a classic Watson performance, but Kingsley’s turn is necessary to the expanded canon — by assuming each other’s role, it’s basically as close to couples therapy as Holmes and Watson get in all the films.

André Morell, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

A visually splendid, devilishly entertaining film from the gothic kings at Hammer Film Productions. Terence Fisher doused the first color adaptation of Holmes’s most famous case with lashings of red and green — which weren’t enough to impress the Conan Doyle estate, which took umbrage with Hammer’s salacious changes to the plot. We suspect, however, that Conan Doyle would have approved of Hound’s two leads: Peter Cushing as Sherlock and André Morell as Watson are lively, sharp, and engrossing, with Morell serving as a useful tonic to the “buffoon” many saw Nigel Bruce as. Holmes is absent for a good portion of the 87-minute story (all part of his cunning plan, you see), and while Watson can’t hope to replicate the detective’s wry charisma, Morell does well in his scenes with cast members Christopher Lee and Francis de Wolff — a capable, thoughtful accomplice who’s shown to be highly valued by Holmes.

Robert Sean Leonard, House (2004–2012)

Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard were originally supposed to play overt modern versions of Holmes and Watson, but the primary plot duty of Holmes’s companion is to bounce off Holmes’s galaxy-brained lateral logic, and most of that happens within Dr. House’s diagnostics team (Leonard’s Dr. James Wilson is head of oncology). As a result, Wilson took a less active role in House’s detectivelike medical cases — but no one on the show puts up with House’s crotchety, crabby demeanor quite like Wilson. Across its eight-season run, House toed the line between procedural and character drama in a way that would have impressed Conan Doyle. Juvenile pranks, exhausted exasperation, and stubborn loyalty characterize Wilson and House’s relationship, and Leonard’s blend of detached wit and clear compassion is the key that most effectively unlocks the sincerity and vulnerability behind House’s neuroses. Before Sherlock, this was the defining Holmes bromance on TV.

Lucy Liu, Elementary (2012–2019)

It is no surprise that Lucy Liu would play the most stylish Watson, but the actress proved the many, tired detractors wrong by giving us a superlative update on the character. For seven seasons, Dr. Joan Watson played an active role in the socialization of the recently sober Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller), quickly shirking the job assigned to her by his father and becoming a full-fledged consulting detective. The American-procedural format is a perfect fit for modern Holmes (Elementary should have been called Sherlock Holmes in New York, but Roger Moore had dibs) — every 45-minute episode is filled with deductive-reasoning goodness and hones in on the interpersonal friction caused by their evolving duties. Liu’s Watson is vulnerable but firm, more assertive than period versions as she takes a more active (but still complicated) role in Sherlock’s life. It’s refreshing to have a Holmes and Watson friendship that doesn’t shy away from articulating the fierce, unique love shared by the pair.

Martin Freeman, Sherlock (2010–2017)

Martin Freeman’s sardonic, deadpan wit was a key factor in The Office U.K. becoming a smash hit — a dry, beleaguered everyman who contrasts the heightened, alienating whims of the lead character. No, we’re not saying that David Brent is just like Sherlock Holmes, but Freeman’s John Watson in Sherlock, the blockbuster-scaled megahit BBC reboot, is so often frustrated and jeopardized that we wouldn’t be at all surprised if he started eyeballing the camera in times of dire distress. Sherlock’s Watson is one of the least stagey in the canon of Holmes adaptations, playing on Freeman’s ability to flit between dramatic and comic material with a natural, quick poise. He’s loyal and vulnerable, and his affection for his detective partner is so fraught with disagreements (both severe and amusing) that many manically theorized the pair’s relationship would turn romantic — this is where Holmes-Watson shipping broke containment.

Edward Hardwicke, Granada Television (1986–1994)

Edward Hardwicke inherited the role of Watson from David Burke after 13 episodes of the Granada television adaptation in the 1980s, but Hardwicke wasn’t unfamiliar to the role’s history. His father, Sir Cedric, played Watson in a BBC radio play, and when Cedric was under contract for RKO Pictures, he was good friends with Nigel Bruce. Over the course of their series, Hardwicke and co-star Jeremy Brett committed to crafting the best possible versions of their characters: Dense exposition was shared to reduce Watson’s passivity; the actors embraced warmth and humor whenever possible; Hardwicke understood Watson’s physician role as a key parallel to Holmes’s detective work. Hardwicke’s Watson is unassuming but arresting, a strong dramatic presence that complements Brett’s eccentric, received pronunciation. Thanks to Hardwicke, the Granada version isn’t just home to a superlative Sherlock but one of the most authentic and winning dynamic duos.

James Mason, Murder by Decree (1979)

Perhaps it’s fitting for an underrated performance to lead a ranking of an underrated character. Murder by Decree is, on the surface, just another original Holmes adventure from the ’70s, but it may shock you to learn it is the second Sherlock Holmes film where he tries to catch Jack the Ripper. It also preceded Alan Moore’s graphic novel, From Hell, in blaming the killings on a royal conspiracy with the Freemasons. (This theory was popularized in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight, not to be confused with the Peaky Blinders guy.) Christopher Plummer gives a mannered (dare we say, subdued) performance as an older Holmes, but thankfully he comes alive in his scenes with James Mason, an actor of distinguished elocution who provides welcome warmth as an experienced but frequently perturbed Watson. There’s so much affection on display between the pair, as if age had softened most of their archness and they’ve settled into a comfortable, reliable rhythm of companionship. Holmes is still amused by winding up his friend, and Mason’s incredulous mustache wiggling is a lighthearted grace note in a sea of grim, horror-tinged tidings. The fact that Holmes and Watson both live together as bachelors past middle age (Plummer was 49 at the time of the film’s release; Mason was 69) suggests that at some point, Holmes and Watson realized that there was no escaping their fated married-couple dynamic.

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