Benedict Cumberbatch wears a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin

The prop department replaced the transparent caseback on this Jaeger-LeCoultre with a solid steel one engraved "Time will tell how much I love you - Christine." Rachel McAdams plays Dr. Christine Palmer, Strange's former colleague and love interest. The inscription turns a high-end dress watch into a plot device. Scott Derrickson directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill. The film opens with Strange as a neurosurgeon who collects watches. He is shown choosing this one from a rack of pieces in Swiss winders before a car accident destroys his hands and sends him to Kathmandu looking for a cure.

The ref. 130842J is a 39mm perpetual calendar in stainless steel, 9.2mm thick. It tracks day, date, month, year, leap year cycle, and moon phases. JLC introduced ultra-thin perpetual calendars in the 1980s, and fitting that much complication into a case under 10mm remains difficult work. For a character who will shortly start manipulating time with magic, a perpetual calendar is almost too on the nose. But the film earns the connection by establishing Strange as someone who cares about mechanical precision before he encounters the mystical.

JLC stayed with the character into the sequel. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) brings back the same ref. 130842J with the engraved caseback intact, and there is a scene where Strange repairs it. The perpetual calendar survived the events of Infinity War and Endgame after all, which feels right for an object Strange has held onto across worlds and timelines.