It is more than halfway through 2026, and I am not sure I’ve seen a better release from this year than The Sheep Detectives. This should be a farcical line to write. There should be a punchline about how I’ve been in a coma for six months.
Well, I haven’t.
I’ve yet to see the latest from Steven Spielberg, and I am eagerly anticipating Christopher Nolan’s big cut at Homer. But it wouldn’t surprise me if I still felt that way when August rolls around.
The Sheep Detectives is one of those movies that makes being a cinephile feel worth it. It’s a damn delight, first and foremost. It’s funny and appropriately sentimental. It feels well-sized for a moment when working together feels like the most important work we can do. It does this, somehow, with Hugh Jackman interacting almost exclusively with fake sheep who have very famous voices, a bunch of references to mystery novels, and Cousin Greg from Succession barely managing an English accent.
It is a ridiculous proposition as a film. The fact that it works makes it your little secret as a movie person—a fun and eyebrow-raising answer for the best thing you’ve seen this year when someone casually asks you over a round of drinks.
Stories are made in the way they are told, whether that’s an ingenious and ill-advised script, a warmly delivered performance, or the right lighting or sound that sets the mood. In fact, and of course, it is all of these things put together.
The Sheep Detectives feels like a reverse-engineered version of Brass Monkey’s Poorly Explained Movies. Simply summarizing it for a friend might make you shuffle your feet and stare at the ground. Just after, you might shake someone by the shoulders and encourage them to go see this damn thing.
You just never know, do you? And that, of course, is why we still go to the movies.
I saw the trailer for this film and thought: “It should look awful, but the cast is making it look delightful.” I mean, Emma Thompson alone! I haven’t seen it, but some family members have and they loved it. You may have persuaded me to give the damn thing a watch, Andrew 👍😅