This has been a pretty good year so far for book-to-screen adaptations. Project Hail Mary continues to rake in the box office dollars, and this weekend offers two more movies taken from popular reading material in Remarkably Bright Creatures (streaming Friday with a Netflix subscription) and The Sheep Detectives, which features an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman. I don’t know what it is about animal movies that bring out the punny reviews, but let’s make a game out of it and see how many ewe can catch.
The Sheep Detectives is an adaptation of the 2005 novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann that some are describing as Babe meets Knives Out. The comedic mystery features a flock of sheep trying to solve the murder of their shepherd, so let’s see what the critics are bleating about in their reviews ahead of its May 8 release on the 2026 movie calendar.
Michael Conway of JoBlo calls it “shear perfection,” writing that the movie commits to its ridiculousness without treating the audience like idiots. The critic gives it a “Great” 8 out of 10 in his review and says:
Article continues belowThis is where the film truly surprised me. I went in expecting something cute, clever, and maybe amusing enough to recommend as a harmless family mystery. What I didn’t expect was a movie that would dive this hard into grief, death, fear, and the emotional confusion that comes with losing someone who gave your life structure. Of course, this is still a funny, charming, and very accessible family movie, but it has a darker and more thoughtful center than I ever expected.
Emma Simmonds of Radio Times rates it 3 out of 5 stars and agrees with the above review that the more The Sheep Detectives leans into its madness, the more successful it is, adding up to what the critic calls a “baa-rmy whodunnit” that’s “fun for the whole flock.”
Although The Sheep Detectives has many of the expected elements of a murder mystery, it's simultaneously a visually sunny, firmly family orientated effort, with some child-friendly discussion of the concept of death, as the wilfully ignorant flock (who wipe their own memories on a regular basis and have a belief system constructed around clouds) come to terms with life’s harsh realities.
Harry Stainer of Empire also gives the film 3 out of 5 stars, with his review of The Sheep Detectives noting some tonal whiplash in trying to be a whimsical, talking-animal flick and a hard-boiled murder mystery at the same time, but it holds together well enough to be enjoyable and engaging. Stainer concludes:
These furry detectives are no Hercule Poir-ewe, but this eclectic, well-voiced herd takes on the case with enough earnestness to make it a yarn worth telling.
Robbie Collin of The Telegraph calls it the “cosiest, fluffiest crime thriller imaginable,” though it’s unquestionably one of the crime genre’s oddest offerings. Collin gives this murder mystery 3 out of 5 stars, praising the story and visual effects, even if some aspects of the movie “are likely to elicit a species-appropriate meh-eh-eh-eh-eh.” The critic says:
The Sheep Detectives is a profoundly odd viewing experience – entirely pleasant, lightly funny and easily absorbed, yet every so often you find yourself thinking hang on a minute, I am watching a flock of sheep investigate a murder, and feel like you are having a stroke.
I’ll end this with William Bibbiani of The Wrap, who is really giving it his all in a review that says: “Listen Up, Sheeple! This Ewe-Dunnit Is Cozy as Flock.” He hails The Sheep Detectives as a “remarkable” family flick, though being family-friendly in this case doesn’t mean toothless, as the story goes out of its way to stare death in the face.
Credit goes to the critic, who bemoans the historical lack of sheep in the mystery genre and celebrates being able to now “put the past(ure) behind us.” He writes:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote ‘Shear-lock Holmes,’ Raymond Chandler never wrote ‘The Big Sheep,’ and even ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ was surprisingly lean in the lamb department. If it wasn’t for Leonie Swann’s 2005 German novel Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story, and Kyle Balda’s new feature film adaptation The Sheep Detectives, we might never have known what we were missing. As cozy farm animal detective stories go, it simply can’t be bleat.
Yeah, so there were some “baaaad” sheep puns in this flock of reviews, but I can’t help but love the wordplay. The critics can’t be blamed for the puns either; it’s impossible to resist the temptation, especially when The Sheep Detectives trailer refers to it as a “herder mystery,” which I find a bit of a stretch.
The movie, meanwhile, is apparently not a flippant pun-fest but includes some pretty deep material, despite still being considered appropriate for the whole family by critics, with its PG rating. If you want to catch this movie adaptation on the big screen, you can do so starting Friday, May 8.
