The Sheep Detectives – Review. By Deniz Arslan.
If we ranked live-action talking animal adventure films from best to worst, Babe (1995) would probably be at the top, while Garfield: The Movie (2004) would be at the bottom for me. But The Sheep Detectives completely turned that whole ranking upside down and positioned itself, for me, as the best film ever made in this genre. Yes, I started with a very bold statement, but ever since I watched the first trailer, I felt that this film had huge potential, and I can say that I’m proud of being right. I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched a film that I had this much fun with, this much enjoyment watching. It really felt like I experienced that pure happiness feeling again.
The Sheep Detectives tells the story of the events that unfold after a sweet and peaceful shepherd (Hugh Jackman), who reads murder mystery novels to his sheep every night, becomes the victim of a mysterious murder. These intelligent sheep, who became addicted to the genre because of the detective novels they listened to from their shepherd, try to find the killer by applying the classic whodunit rules to solve the murder. During this, the film also contains many hilarious scenes involving them trying to adapt to the human world. I think my favorite one — and probably many other people’s too — was their reaction when they saw asphalt for the first time. The film also has emotional depth on the level of the best Pixar films and, honestly, it even manages to make you cry. — No sir, of course I didn’t cry. I just saw people crying in the theater! — Even though it sometimes has dark moments that you wouldn’t expect from a children’s film — all these themes about death might feel heavy for children — it still somehow manages to do everything in a very balanced way.
The film has an incredible creative team behind it. Kyle Balda, the director of the Minions movie, makes his first live-action directing experience here. He manages to adapt that bright, colorful, surreal worldbuilding style that we usually only see in animation into real life. Also, in a cinema world increasingly filled with CGI that becomes more ordinary and boring every year, the film has genuinely dazzling visual effects.
There’s also a very interesting choice for the screenwriter of a children’s movie. Craig Mazin — the writer of Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, which I personally think are the two best films in the entire Scary Movie franchise, then Superhero Movie which was made after the success of those films, and together with Todd Phillips also wrote the The Hangover series, while also somehow having a portfolio ranging from Wicked to Dune: Part Two — was chosen, and as expected from him, he delivered a fantastic job. The executive producers of the film are PhilLord and Christopher Miller, the creators of this year’s box office miracle Project Hail Mary and the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse series.
And the film’s score is composed by Christophe Beck, who I genuinely think is one of the most genius film composers of our time, yet somehow has never been recognized or appreciated nearly enough. I actually have a strange history with this guy. At completely different times, I’d watch a movie, really love its soundtrack, decide to listen to the full score album afterwards, and then suddenly realize that it was composed by Christophe Beck yet again. This happened to me over and over, probably four or five different times at this point. I’ve genuinely never had that happen with any other film composer before. I think there might actually be some kind of telepathic connection between me and his music.
The live-action cast includes some of my favorite actors of our time such as Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson, alongside rising stars like Nicholas Braun. But the voice cast is even crazier: Julia Louis-Dreyfus voices a sheep named Lily, who is the leader of the group. Bryan Cranston appears as a darker and more pessimistic sheep named Sebastian. There’s also Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, and Patrick Stewart, whose appearance in the film surprised me because somehow I had no idea he was even in this movie. Honestly, I really don’t know the last time I watched a film where such a good cast, such a good creative team, and screenwriting and directing that work this perfectly together all came together in one movie. I think I can describe the feeling of watching a film with this good of a cast like this: think about the sudden surprise you feel while watching Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) whenever another celebrity suddenly appears for a cameo. This movie gave me exactly that feeling as a cinema lover.
To explain how so many different elements come together and somehow create such a great film, I can probably reuse a comparison I made while writing about last year’s Sinners. When talking about Ryan Coogler, I mentioned how he managed to throw completely different things like vampires, blues music, and African culture into the same pot and somehow create something so delicious out of it. The Sheep Detectives does something similar. It is both an Agatha Christie-style classic whodunit that genuinely keeps you curious about who the killer is, a smart comedy with a very subtle sense of humor, and also an incredibly cute and funny slapstick film. And on top of all that, it is also an emotional film that genuinely manages to move you.
It works both as a very good children’s film and as something strong enough to easily become one of many adults’ favorite movies. While there are dozens of films that try to do only one ofthe genres I mentioned and still fail, The Sheep Detectives somehow manages to do all of them at the same time, and with incredible mastery. Honestly, the only other film in cinema history that managed to combine all these qualities this perfectly while also delivering a fantastic narrative was Finding Nemo. (2003) And honestly, The Sheep Detectives definitely feels like it’s on that level.
