The Sheep Detectives is exactly that kind of oddball triumph of a film that feels like it shouldn’t work on paper – until it absolutely does: A murder mystery where the sleuths are a flock of sheep, the victim is their beloved shepherd, and the emotional through-line quietly sneaks up on you when you’re least expecting it.
I’ll admit, it took me a little while to settle into its rhythm. The opening stretch feels slightly unsure of itself, as though it’s testing how far it can lean into its own absurdity. But once it clicks – once the film fully embraces both the whimsy and the weight of its premise – it becomes something genuinely delightful. Not just funny, but oddly moving.
The central conceit focuses on George (Hugh Jackman), a solitary shepherd, who spends his nights reading murder mysteries aloud to his sheep. When he turns up dead, the flock – having absorbed the mechanics of a good whodunit – set out to solve the crime themselves. It’s a setup that could easily collapse into gimmick, but instead, it blossoms into something far richer. Think Knives Out reimagined through a softer, more family-friendly lens… albeit one with more existential bite than you might expect.
And that’s the quiet surprise of the film – it’s funnier, and more adult-skewed, than it initially lets on. The humour isn’t just in the sheep behaving like humans, but in how they misunderstand humanity altogether. Their logic is skewed, their conclusions occasionally absurd, but there’s a strange wisdom underneath it all. The film plays in that space beautifully, mining both comedy and poignancy from their perspective.
The voice cast does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Julia Louis-Dreyfus brings a warmth and gentle authority to Lily (“The smartest sheep”), grounding the film with a sense of emotional intelligence that never feels overplayed. Opposite her, Chris O’Dowd’s Mopple (“The most patient sheep”) is quietly devastating – the only sheep who remembers everything, carrying a kind of soft melancholy that lingers long after the jokes land. Their dynamic becomes the film’s emotional anchor, giving real weight to a story that could have coasted on charm alone.
Among the human cast, Nicholas Braun’s Tim – a deeply out-of-his-depth police officer – walks a fine line between bumbling and sincere, and crucially, never tips too far into caricature. Molly Gordon has a lot of fun playing George’s estranged, perpetually suspicious daughter, while Emma Thompson, in full command-of-the-room mode, delivers exactly the kind of sharp, controlled performance you want from a character who seems ten steps ahead of everyone else.
What surprises most, though, is how the film handles its themes. Beneath the playful mystery is a story about grief, memory, and the ways we process loss. It doesn’t shy away from mortality – both human and animal – in a way that feels honest without ever becoming overwhelming. That said, it does make the film an interesting proposition for younger audiences. While the sheep keep things accessible on the surface, the humour and emotional undercurrents skew older; I suspect kids under 12 might not fully connect with what it’s doing.
Visually, there’s a storybook quality to the world that complements the tone nicely – pastoral but slightly heightened, like a place just removed from reality. And crucially, the sheep themselves feel tangible and expressive, never slipping into uncanny territory.
By the time the mystery unravels, The Sheep Detectives has fully won you over. It’s clever without being smug, heartfelt without being cloying, and consistently more thoughtful than it needs to be. A film that, frankly, is better than it has any right to be.
It may take a beat to find its footing, but once it does, it’s a charming, quietly profound little whodunit that sticks with you – for its laughs, yes, but also for its surprisingly tender view of the world.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Sheep Detectives is screening in Australian theatres from May 7th, 2026, before opening in the United States on May 8th.
