Plot
In 1891, a series of bombings blamed on political radicals bring France and Germany to the brink of war. Detective Sherlock Holmes narrowly intercepts one such bomb instead intended for expert surgeon Dr. Hoffmanstahl and Holmes' former lover Irene Adler. Holmes explains the true culprit to be Adler and Hoffmanstahl's employer, Professor James Moriarty, who has the two assassinated after they flee the scene. Holmes discloses to his friend, Dr. John Watson, that he has connected seemingly unrelated murders, terrorist attacks, and business acquisitions to Moriarty.
After meeting with his brother Mycroft at Watson's bachelor party, Holmes meets with Romani fortune-teller Madame Simza, the intended recipient of the letter he took from Adler, sent by her brother René. He defeats an assassin sent to kill her, but she flees.
After the wedding of Watson and Mary Morstan, Holmes meets Moriarty for the first time. Moriarty taunts him about murdering Adler and threatens to kill Watson and Mary due to Holmes' interference, while the detective vows to defeat him.
Moriarty's men ambush Watson and Mary on a train to their honeymoon in Brighton. Holmes throws Mary from the train into a river, where she is rescued by Mycroft. After defeating Moriarty's men, Holmes and Watson travel to Paris and locate Simza. Holmes tells her she has been targeted because René is working for Moriarty and may have told her his plans.
Simza takes the pair to the headquarters of an anarchist group to which she and René belonged, and which has been forced to plant bombs for Moriarty. The trio follows Holmes' deduction that the bomb is in the Paris Opera. It is actually in a nearby hotel, where it kills several businessmen – a cover-up for the assassination of Alfred Meinhard by Sebastian Moran, expert sharpshooter and henchman to Moriarty. Meinhard's death grants Moriarty ownership of the former's arms factory in Heilbronn.
The trio follows Moriarty to Germany. At the factory, Moriarty captures, interrogates, and tortures Holmes while Watson fights Moran. Holmes spells out Moriarty's plot, revealing that the Professor acquired shares in multiple war profiteering companies and intends to instigate a world war to make himself a fortune.
Watson uses a cannon to destroy the watchtower in which Moran is concealed. The structure collapses into the warehouse where Moriarty is holding Holmes captive. Watson, Simza, and Holmes soon escape. Once out of the factory, Holmes deduces that Moriarty's final goal will be to create an international incident at a peace summit in Switzerland. At the summit, Holmes deduces that René is the assassin disguised as one of the ambassadors, having been given radical reconstructive surgery by Hoffmanstahl.
Holmes and Moriarty meet on a balcony to discuss their plans over a game of chess. Watson and Simza stop René's assassination attempt, but René is killed by Moran. Despite his war being averted, Moriarty remains confident in his victory, predicting to Holmes that the nations of Europe will inevitably go to war with one another. Holmes reveals that, while being tortured by Moriarty, he replaced the professor's personal diary that contained his plans and financing with a duplicate, whilst the original was sent to Mary, who decrypted the code using a book Holmes had noticed in Moriarty's office, before passing the information to Inspector Lestrade, who seizes Moriarty's assets and donates his fortune to charities for war widows and orphans.
Holmes and Moriarty anticipate a fight, and both realise that Moriarty will win due to Holmes' injured shoulder. With Moriarty vowing to kill Watson and Mary, Holmes drags him over the balcony just as Watson arrives, and the two fall into the Reichenbach Falls.
Following Holmes's funeral, Watson and Mary prepare to have their belated honeymoon when the doctor receives a package containing Mycroft's breathing device, which Sherlock noticed before the summit. Realising that Holmes may be alive, Watson leaves his office to ask Mary about the delivery man; while Holmes, having concealed himself, reads Watson's memoirs on the typewriter and adds a question mark after the words "The End".
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