The Sheep Detectives
Director: Kyle Balda
Writer: Craig Mazin
Based on: Leonie Swann‘s novel Glennkill, English translation: Three Bags Full
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Brett Goldstein, Patrick Stewart, Regina Hall, Bella Ramsey, Chris O’Dowd, Rhys Darby, Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hong Chau, Tosin Cole, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Emma Thompson
Seen on: 30.5.2026

Plot:
George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) lives a peaceful, if a little lonely life with his sheep. Every night, he reads a murder mystery to them, unaware how much the sheep are really listening. When George himself ends up dead on his farm, the sheep, above all Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), are determined to find out what really happend to him. With the help of Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), Lily takes on the case – and needs to figure out how to lead the more or less hapless local police office (Nicholas Braun) to its true solution.

The Sheep Detectives is the sort of whimsical that is not necessarily up my alley, but I knew that going in (the AC beckoned me more than the film). Still, I expected to enjoy it a little more than I did. Nevertheless, I was entertained.

I’m not much for these kind of murder mysteries – they just aren’t my cup of tea. But I was reasonably certain that with the sheep and that amazing cast, the film would be engaging enough for me. And it certainly has some really fun ideas, but I also felt that it was astonishingly long. Especially the sheep shenanigans that were leaning towards slapstick a lot didn’t work that well for me and made the movie drag a little.

The human characters get a little short-changed here, although that was to be expected. Still, I regretted it a little, especially seeing only so very little of Emma Thompson (then again, there is barely a film out there that has enough Thompson). But the voice-cast is generally great and I really enjoyed the different sheep characters, as one note as some of them may be.

The movie tries to tackle some deeper issues, and I felt that it was trying a little too much with that, maybe. Especially the situation of “winter lambs” that are so completely despised by all sheep, was really upsetting for me and the movie didn’t really resolve this in a very satisfying way. You can’t solve structural discrimination by one of the marginalized being accepted into the fold. You can barely discuss it that way.

That being said, the movie does what it promises to do: sheep solve crime, and this inherently ridiculous premise gets the necessary lightness to make it work in the film. It is rare to get such an accurate idea about a film just from the looks of it, but with The Sheep Detectives, the packaging matches the contents. So, if it looks utterly delightful to you, it probably will be.

Summarizing: fun for the most part.