Who’s smarter: Sherlock or Moriarty? BBC showdowns, ranked and explained

BBC's Sherlock reimagines Conan Doyle's original with a 21st-century spin. When Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss revived the series in 2010, they did more than merely modernize Sherlock Holmes. They created a confident new version of him—smartphone in hand, coat collar up, cutting through the knotted maze of latest technology, mass media, and big-crime London.

At its center is Sherlock Holmes himself. Cold, logical, unpredictable—and completely fascinating. But Sherlock doesn't succeed because Holmes is an intellectual giant. What really drives the show is the incendiary clash between two of literature's finest minds: Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty. Their showdown isn't a subplot—it's the heart of the show. Every encounter between them is a chess game of life and death, with the smallest error wiping out champions—or cities.

Let's start with Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

He's no ordinary detective. He doesn't work cases for passion or morality. He does it because his mind must have something to occupy it. Raised in a warm but emotionally circumspect family—his mother a mathematical genius and his brother Mycroft constantly reminding him he's not "the clever one"—Sherlock must prove himself. He creates the job of "consulting detective" just so he can have an outlet for his talents. And succeeds.

His war veteran roommate, Dr. John Watson, resides with him in a flat at 221B Baker Street.

Sherlock is working in close collaboration with Scotland Yard—but always in his own way. He's rude, blunt, insensitive, and often infuriating, but always correct. His powers of deduction are unmatched. He notices what others don't see, makes mental arithmetic like a computer, and slices through deception like a surgeon. But do not ask him for advice. Sherlock is committed to reason, allergic to emotion, and miserably uncomfortable with human relationships. But there's something appealing about him—even when he's two paces in front and five emotional miles behind.

Then enter Jim Moriarty.

Posed to terrifying perfection by Andrew Scott, Moriarty is Sherlock's opposite number—but with the moral compass taken away. Where Sherlock is order, Moriarty is chaos. While Sherlock helps the cops crack cases, Moriarty helps crooks commit them. As a title of respect, he's a "consulting criminal." He is at the center of a hidden universe in which anything—banks, state secrets, etc.—is up for grabs. He doesn't want money or influence—at least, not in the traditional sense. He wants to win. To prove he's cleverer. To knock down everything Sherlock cares about because he can.

What makes their feud so amazing is how closely matched they are. Both are super smart. Both were alienated from the regular laws of society. But where Sherlock wants to solve, Moriarty is the problem. Their conflict isn't crime versus justice—it's purpose.

And that is what makes Sherlock so much more than another detective show. It's not just about crime-solving—two geniuses engaging in a cat-and-mouse game of intelligence. One is trying to maintain the world as it is. The other is trying to destroy it.

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Who's smarter—Sherlock or Moriarty?

This is a fan favorite bout: who's the real genius, Sherlock Holmes or Jim Moriarty?

Holmes is the higher-brain par excellence—his is a mind driven by deduction, reason, and laser-focused pattern recognition. He's fundamentally a problem-solver, a person who can take a torrent of disparate facts and string them together before anyone else has even seen them. That is his superpower.

Moriarty is built on another frequency. He's not solving puzzles—he's building them. His wit is not insight—it's planning, disguise, and mind games. He's unpredictable, unconventional, and lethal simply because you can't predict him. If Holmes is the guy who cracks the code, Moriarty is the guy who remakes the cipher.

Meanwhile, this debate never reaches a conclusion. The fans examine each battle and each plot twist. Take The Reichenbach Fall: Was Sherlock's survival proof of his cleverness? Or did Moriarty win by being clever and setting him up in a no-win situation and playing the checkmate with a bullet? Did Sherlock actually outsmart him or adapt more rapidly when the game was changed?

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The BBC Showdowns: Top Confrontations Ranked and Explained

At the heart of the show is a continually escalating battle of brains between Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty—each encounter more fiery than the last. Let's take a look at their most memorable face-offs, ranked and analyzed for what they say about these two brains in one of television's greatest games of strength.

The Great Game (Season 1, Episode 3)

It begins when Sherlock, wonderfully bored and famished for something worthy of his talents, is swept into a series of deadly puzzles.

An unknown puppet master—someone who clearly knows his game—contacts him via telephone with a desperate set of instructions. Each message opens a new case, each case linked to a hostage whose life drains with the clock. Our detective must work quickly, piecing together everything from the death of a boy decades ago to a celebrity murder and a fake disappearance of a businessman. None of the crimes are random—each is part of a greater, darker scheme.

He responds to the challenge in old-fashioned style: noticing the use of botulinum toxin that others have missed, spotting frozen blood at a staged crime scene, and racing through each puzzle with his signature deduction abilities. Genius has its limits, however. One hostage does indeed die after he cracks the case—proof that this adversary is getting nasty. And then it gets personal: the final hostage is John Watson, strapped to a bomb vest.

It turns out the brains behind the operation is Jim Moriarty. The season concludes on a not-literally-but-dramatically-a-cliffhanger at a pool: Holmes aiming a gun at a bomb, snipers locked on him and John, and Moriarty walking away, then returning with reinforcements. Then? Blackout. The message is made clear: Moriarty is not just smart. He's frighteningly so—and with no morals.

This episode marks the beginning of what Holmes will become. It sets the "game" in play: Moriarty crafts ingenious, interconnected crimes behind the scenes, and Sherlock's intellect is at last matched—and maybe even outmatched—by someone who cares not who gets hurt along the way.

The Reichenbach Fall (Season 2, Episode 3)

In The Reichenbach Fall, Moriarty is not just trying to beat Holmes mentally, but completely: his reputation, his backing network, even his desire to be alive. He performs a series of impossible crimes—robbing the Tower of London, to name but one—and pins them all on Holmes. It works. The media turns, the police turn, and even his mates begin to question.

The final showdown is on top of St. Bart's Hospital, and it's the epitome of high stakes.

Moriarty gives him a ruthless ultimatum: jump to your death, or watch your closest friends die, one by one. It's no longer a battle of wits—it's mind games. And just as that mind game reaches its climax, Moriarty shocks everyone by killing himself. Like that.

He takes the supposedly "fail-safe" trailing behind him, thinking that Holmes can't possibly stop what is to come. But he does. He fakes death in an elaborate scheme involving Mycroft and a loyal entourage, fooling the world and saving his friends. He wins—but barely. And at what cost?

Moriarty shows us just how far ahead of the game he can plan—not just outsmarting Holmes, but so completely reversing the whole game against him. But Holmes's survival proves that he's not just super-smart—he's also clever, systematic, and capable of thinking on the fly.

Who wins out? That's still debatable. But one thing's for sure: it's one of TV's greatest bromance duos.

His Last Vow (Season 3, Episode 3) and Beyond

Even in death, Moriarty will not quit quietly. In His Last Vow, the main menace is Charles Augustus Magnussen, but there's a shadow looming over all—and it is Moriarty's. Throughout Season 3, our Mr. know-it-all is tormented by the possibility that Moriarty may not have been dead forever. Perhaps he staged his own death. Perhaps he laid traps before he met his demise. Perhaps the game never really ended.

And then, just when the dust has finally settled, Moriarty's face is seen on all of London's monitors, with one memorable question: "Did you miss me?"

That is all. That is all there is to it. Everything changes. Even in death, Moriarty is deadly—not only to Holmes, but to the whole city. Now he is not only battling new foes; he's coping with the mental trauma of a rivalry that will not die.

Moriarty's return, either real or imagined, does serve this: genius doesn't perish by the gun. Moriarty's plot works its way through ripples even in death, keeping him on his toes, the audience in limbo, and their game of chess alive and thriving.