Vincent Canby of '' The New York Times '' called the film " nothing less than the most exhilarating entertainment of the film year to date . " Gene Siskel of the '' Chicago Tribune '' gave the film four stars out of four and called it " the classiest motion picture of the holiday season " and " a rare combination of money and brains . " He placed it ninth on his year-end list of the best films of 1976 . Arthur D. Murphy of '' Variety '' called it " an outstanding film . Producer-director Herbert Ross and writer Nicholas Meyer , adapting his novel , have fashioned a most stylish , elegant and classy period crime drama . " Charles Champlin of the '' Los Angeles Times '' wrote , " It is a particularly handsome period piece , beautifully staged and acted and most genuinely charming . " Gary Arnold of '' The Washington Post '' called the film " an amusing , elegant and unusually appealing adventure movie , a swashbuckler with literate , intellectual heroes . " British reviewers were more critical with '' The Times '' calling it " a turgid concoction which draws no life from the Holmes/Freud confontation and seems particularly ill-plotted . " '' The Daily Telegraph '' said " The tale drags on for reel after reel before we cotton on to the fact that it is meant to be funny . " '' The Sunday Times '' said " the basic conflicts in Conan Doyle 's original dissipate into whimsy , cuteness and slow , period-laden self-indulgence . " Mike Hale of '' The New York Times '' , after mentioning Robert Downey Jr. 's version of Sherlock Holmes , Benedict Cumberbatch in '' Sherlock '' and Jonny Lee Miller in '' Elementary '' , opined that Nicol Williamson 's Holmes was " the father of all those modern Holmeses " claiming the film " established the template for all the twitchy , paranoid , vulnerable , strung-out Holmeses to come . " The film received two Oscar nominations for Best Writing ( Adapted Screenplay ) ( Nicholas Meyer ) and Best Costume Design ( Alan Barrettt ) at the 49th Academy Awards
49th Academy Awards
49th Academy Awards
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (film)