May 10, 2026
Shepherd George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) owned a meadow outside the town of Denbrook, on which his flock of sheep were put out to pasture. Beyond feeding them, George also spent time reading detective crime mystery novels to his sheep. Among his favorites among his flock were the aloof loner Sebastian (Bryan Cranston), wise Merino sheep Mopple (Chris O'Dowd), the stately Sir Richfield (Patrick Stewart) and the smartest one of the group, Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). The sheep would then discuss these cases when George went to bed.
One night, a murder disturbed the peace in Hardy's farm, the first such case that the town's only policeman Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) had ever handled. A visiting journalist Ellliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine) volunteered to help him. When Atty. Harbottle (Emma Thompson) arrived, the suspects were revealed -- the neighbor Caleb (Tosin Cole), the butcher Ham (Conleth Hill), the innkeeper Beth (Hong Chau), the priest Rev. Hillcoate (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), and George's estranged daughter Rebecca (Molly Gordon).
The screenplay of "The Sheep Detectives" was written by Craig Mazin, creator of HBO series "Chernobyl" (2019) and "The Last of Us" (2023), adapted from the 2005 German novel "Three Bags Full" by Leonie Swann. The film is the first live-action film (mixed with digital animation) directed by Kyle Balda, who is best known for animated films like "The Lorax" (2012) and "Minions" (2015), all for Illumination Studios. The big name actors (Jackman, Thompson) and voices (Louis-Dreyfus, Cranston) add prestige to this project.
Watching the titular sheep detectives in action immediately called to mind the delightful 1995 movie "Babe," about a pig who wanted to be a sheepdog. That film was a commercial and critical success, even earning itself seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director for Chris Noonan. Its Oscar-winning visual effects team employed a mix of live animals (48 piglets had to be used to keep the size of Babe uniform), animatronics, and digital mouth manipulation to create the illusion of talking animals.
The sophisticated visual effects we see in "The Sheep Detectives" shows the progress in this field for the past 30 years, as now all the animals are 100% photo-realistic computer-generated imagery. The photorealistic animals in "The Sheep Detectives" are more fully-realized, capable of expressively conveying human-like emotions. This is a positive progression from the grim, expressionless hyper-realistic CGI animals in "The Lion King" (2019) that garnered that older film a lot of negative criticism.
Meanwhile, the film's detective story called to mind the Agatha Christie murder mysteries and the "Knives Out" films with the multiple suspects and wry humor. However, the big charming difference is that the human detective Tim Derry was so absurdly clueless, so the sheep needed to actively intervene in the investigation in the cutest, yet ingenious ways. Certain sheep beliefs, like ostracizing winter lambs, forgetting about bad things, and turning into clouds instead of dying, provided room for rich emotional tear-jerking moments. 9/10
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