The Sheep Detectives Review

Craig Mazin, who wrote Chernobyl, first drafted this adaptation of Leonie Swann's novel in 2016, and it took until 2024 for Amazon MGM to shoot it, with Kyle Balda, a co-director of the Minions films, moving into live action. Hugh Jackman's George reads detective novels to his sheep every night. When he is found dead outside his trailer, Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the flock's crime buff, Mopple (Chris O'Dowd), who never forgets anything, and Sebastian (Bryan Cranston), a former carnival fighter, decide the village's only policeman needs their help.

The sheep are the film. Framestore's animation and the voice cast, with Bella Ramsey's questioning lamb and Brett Goldstein's twin rams, are a pleasure, and Mazin's best idea is the flock's habit of willing themselves to forget anything painful, which turns a cozy whodunit into a story about learning that death is real. The humans are weaker: Guy Lodge at Variety found the script shakiest in the village, and Emma Thompson and Hong Chau are underused.

Amazon MGM released it on May 8, 2026, to 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 72 on Metacritic, and Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph noted its obvious debt to Babe. It grossed about 133 million dollars on a 75 million dollar budget.