On his Twitter/X account, bestselling author Stephen King mentioned two 2026 movies that he was very, very fond of. When a user recommended Kyle Balda’s delightful murder mystery “The Sheep Detectives,” King responded by saying that he loved it. “Sheep don’t die,” he wrote, “they turn into clouds,” making a reference to the sheep’s religious beliefs from the movie. King then immediately matched the user’s recommendation by recommending Ben Wheatley’s action thriller “Normal,” starring Bob Odenkirk. “It’s like ‘Fargo’ Lite,” King wrote.
“The Sheep Detectives” and “Normal” couldn’t be more different. The former is twee, delightful, and surprisingly thoughtful about death and mourning, especially for a film aimed at an audience of children. In the world of “The Sheep Detectives,” sheep have a talent for deliberately forgetting anything unpleasant that’s happened to them, a talent they must forego when their shepherd (Hugh Jackman) is murdered. The ovine sleuths have to find ways to alert the local constabulary to clues as to whodunnit. It’s a sweet, cozy mystery that doesn’t always shy away from the darker parts of a traditional film noir.
“Normal,” meanwhile, is a high-octane actioner about a botched bank robbery and a mystery about the yakuza’s presence in a small Minnesota town. “Normal” has a lot in common with Bob Odenkirk’s other recent action thrillers “Nobody” and “Nobody 2,” both of which were written by “Normal” screenwriter Derek Kolstad.
The Sheep Detectives is good!
/Film has been praising the glories of “The Sheep Detectives” since its release in May of 2026. We called the film a must-watch on Prime Video, and we interviewed director Kyle Barda, who revealed some vital details about how he designed the sheep farm to give it a “locked room mystery” vibe. The plot of “The Sheep Detectives” is traditional for a murder mystery, but unconventional in its inclusion of sheep. Hugh Jackman plays George, a gentle shepherd who likes to talk to his sheep and even read them murder mysteries at night. The sheep can speak to each other, but cannot speak to humans. They’re voiced by the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, Regina Hall, and Chris O’Dowd. When George is found dead one morning, the local cop (Nicholas Braun) suspects that George has been poisoned, but he’s far too incompetent to really investigate. The sheep take the matter into their own hands (er, hooves).
As mentioned, “The Sheep Detectives” is very frank about death. Because the sheep know how to strategically forget things, they tend to erase all their memories of witnessing other sheep dying, leading to their belief that sheep turn into clouds upon expiring. The major moment of reckoning in “The Sheep Detectives” comes when several sheep characters reveal that they must remember unpleasant things to solve the mystery, but also to grow up.
This is some Pixar-level emotional wreckage. Throw onto that a subplot about prejudice — a young lamb initially isn’t welcomed into the flock because of the color of his wool — and you have a bracingly mature kids’ movie. But then, I suppose confronting mortality is a necessary element of a murder mystery.
Normal is also good!
We were equally high on Ben Wheatley’s “Normal,” a film we also called a must-watch when it hit HBO Max. /Film’s Joe Roberts loved the streak of black comedy that Wheatley brought to the film, even if, he said, it existed as little more than an excuse for Odenkirk to take up weapons and blow s*** up. If the director’s name is familiar, Wheatley was the mastermind behind the acclaimed movie “Kill List” back in 2011 and has since directed notable films like “High-Rise,” “Free Fire,” and “In the Earth.” He also directed “Meg 2: The Trench” and that “Rebecca” remake with Armie Hammer, but no filmmaker’s resumé is spotless. Regardless, we were excited when we learned that Wheatley and Odenkirk were teaming up.
The title of “Normal” alludes to the small fictional Minnesota town where the action takes place. Odenkirk’s character, Sheriff Ulysses, is merely an interim sheriff, prepared to confront sleepy crimes and small local complaints. Why, though, does the town have such a massive police armory? That’s curious. Indeed, why is Normal abnormally well-off? As Joe Roberts noted, the revelation is “a doozy.”
“Normal” received pretty good reviews when it was released, earning a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 166 reviews. The general consensus seemed to be that Odenkirk is a master of playing a certain kind of appealing everyman character, and that the film’s overall satirical tone was spot-on.
Stephen King, as we see, has diverse taste, but he also has zeroed in on two good recent movies that might have slipped past some people. If any readers decide to partake in a “The Sheep Detectives”https://www.slashfilm.com/”Normal” double feature, let us know how it hits.