Good detective films are rare. So are emotionally rich family films. Which is why it’s tempting to overpraise The Sheep Detectives, a winning PG comedy that ably combines both genres. But even though the movie, which adapts Leonie Swann’s bestselling novel Three Bags Full, can sometimes be too corny or overly precious, director Kyle Balda has fashioned the sort of pleasing all-ages entertainment we get so infrequently. Combining live-action humans with CGI animals, The Sheep Detectives evokes the sunny spirit of classics like Babe while teaching important lessons about death and community. And it contains a wonderful Julia Louis-Dreyfus performance as a smart sheep who discovers she’s got a lot to learn.
The Sheep Detectives stars Hugh Jackman as George, a solitary shepherd living in Denbrook, a small English town where the dimbulb locals, amusingly and inexplicably, are huge fans of the movie Return To Oz. No wonder George prefers the company of his sheep, all of whom he’s named and knows well, even though they can’t communicate with him. Each night, he reads mystery novels to his adoring flock, who sit around him enraptured. All in all, it’s a pretty nice life.
What the audience soon discovers is that, although George cannot understand what his sheep are saying, we can. Bursting with personality, the animals are led by Lily (Louis-Dreyfus), who always figures out who did it in George’s books before he reaches the end. This sensible ewe is joined by Sir Richfield (Patrick Stewart), an elderly ram, and Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), who lacks an ability the other sheep possess, which is to will himself to forget anything. Whenever the flock wants to jettison a sad memory, they just erase it from their mind, putting Mopple in a difficult position. Everyone else, including Lily, believes that sheep don’t die—they just turn into clouds. Mopple keeps the painful realities away from the rest of the sheep, silently holding onto hard truths alone.
After establishing George’s loving rapport with his flock—Jackman could not be more charming—The Sheep Detectives introduces a painful reality that, for once, the flock cannot allow themselves to forget. One bright morning, the animals notice George lying motionless on the grass. Is he sleeping? No, Lily realizes, he’s dead, concluding that he was murdered. But how can a bunch of sheep solve this crime?
Prior to The Sheep Detectives, Balda directed or co-directed several animated films for Illumination, a company with an extraordinary track record of making commercial blockbusters without wit or resonance. Occasionally, The Sheep Detectives relies on adolescent slapstick or dopey punchlines, but for the most part it’s a far more heart-tugging enterprise than, say, Minions: The Rise Of Gru. Plus, the movie manages to navigate a tricky tonal shift from winsome family comedy to melancholy drama once Lily begins investigating George’s death.
Agatha Christie-style, The Sheep Detectives lays out a collection of colorful human characters who might have committed the crime, including an innkeeper (Hong Chau), George’s lawyer (Emma Thompson), and Rebecca (Molly Gordon), George’s long-estranged daughter living in America whom no one knew existed. She’s arrived in the hopes of reconnecting with her father, only to be greeted with the bad news about George. The timing of her arrival seems too perfect to be coincidental, however—one of many variables that naive and ineffectual Denbrook policeman Tim (Nicholas Braun) must consider as he tries to get to the bottom of this murder. But although he’s Denbrook’s only cop, he’s not alone—Lily can’t get him to understand what she’s saying, but she’ll invisibly help him find the culprit.
For much of its runtime, The Sheep Detectives floats along on its sweetness. To be sure, we can see the moral of the story coming a mile away the minute we meet the flock’s puny Winter Lamb (Tommy Birchall), who is ostracized because he was not born in spring like most sheep. As sage as Lily is, she’s as prejudiced as the rest of the flock, but she’ll eventually (and conveniently to the narrative) recognize his value. She’ll also gain wisdom by spending time with the sullen ram Sebastian (Bryan Cranston), an outsider carrying dark secrets about his past before he joined George’s flock. The human characters are all a bit daffy in that “live-action kids’ movie” way, but the digital trickery implemented to bring the sheep to life is adroitly incorporated.
However, in the film’s second half, Balda and screenwriter Craig Mazin subtly connect the dots in their enjoyable tale, finding something deeper and more moving in this story of talking sheep and bumbling detectives. Cranston brings a tender gravitas to his role as Sebastian, a proud loner who secretly wants to find a real home. And O’Dowd is lovely as the one sheep who cannot forget the flock’s sorrows, leading to a touching scene between Mopple and Lily in which she begins to understand the burden he’s been carrying.
But it’s Louis-Dreyfus who steals The Sheep Detectives. Since the end of Veep, the decorated comedic actor has continued to challenge herself, reuniting with Enough Said filmmaker Nicole Holofcener for the wry character study You Hurt My Feelings and starring in the prickly grief drama Tuesday. Celebrities doing voice work tend to emphasize the most noticeable aspects of their speaking style, but Louis-Dreyfus actually disappears as Lily, who has none of the brazenness of Elaine Benes or Selina Meyer. Instead, this savvy sheep is much more vulnerable and thoughtful, determined to find George’s killer but worried that spotting the murderer in a novel is a lot easier than in real life. The Sheep Detectives is meant to be a lightweight family flick, but Louis-Dreyfus gives it an emotional core that’s quite affecting, especially in the movie’s closing stretches.
On top of all this, the reveal of the killer proves supremely satisfying. As expected, Balda leads us down one path for some time, which only convinces us that the primary suspect couldn’t possibly be the real murderer. But the final reveal hints at the cleverness and care woven into the film from the start. Jokes may fall flat, and the movie might get a bit treacly, but The Sheep Detectives‘ big heart is never in question. It gets its man, and gets its audience where they least expect it.
Director: Kyle Balda
Writers: Craig Mazin
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Hong Chau, Brett Goldstein, Emma Thompson
Release Date: May 8, 2026
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