Chris McPherson

Published Jul 3, 2026, 7:45 PM EDT

Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.

For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things BoschMission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider’s news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch.

He is proficient in sarcasm, wit, Photoshop and working unfeasibly long hours. Amongst his passions sit the likes of the history of the Walt Disney Company, the construction of theme parks, steam trains and binge-watching Gilmore Girls with a coffee that is just hot enough to scald him.

His obsession with the Apple TV+ series Silo is the subject of mockery within the Senior News channel, where his feelings about Taylor Sheridan’s work are enough to make his fellow writers roll their eyes.

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It’s always great news when you get word that a terrific new murder mystery movie has hit streaming platforms, because it gives you both something to watch for your own enjoyment, but also, a case to solve. For that is the joy of a well put together crime caper such as this one, which features Hugh Jackman as not-Wolverine in a movie designed for the whole family.

The Sheep Detectives has become an instant streaming success after landing on Prime Video, reaching No. 1 on the platform’s global movie chart within a day of its release. The movie had already found an audience in cinemas earlier this year, but it seems plenty of viewers were still ready to spend their evening watching sheep try to solve a murder. Yes, Sheep. Think Knives Out, but with more wool. And not just that dashing sweater Chris Evans was wearing.

Directed by Kyle Balda and written by Craig Mazin, the film adapts Leonie Swann’s bestselling novel Three Bags Full. It follows Jackman’s George Hardy, a devoted shepherd who reads cozy crime stories to his animals every night, until he’s found dead under suspicious circumstances. If there were chickens involved, we’d suspect fowl play. But there aren’t any, so there was no reason for us to suggest that. Carry on. While the authorities rule it a heart attack, George’s sheep are not baa-baa-buying it, and begin their own investigation.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jackman leads the human side of the film as George, alongside Nicholas Braun (Succession) as a bumbling local police officer, Emma Thompson (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) as a sharp big-city solicitor, and Molly Gordon (The Bear) as George’s estranged daughter. The flock is just as well cast, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus voicing lead investigator Lily, Regina Hall playing the glamorous Cloud, Chris O’Dowd as Mopple, Bryan Cranston as the stoic Sebastian, and Patrick Stewart as Sir Ritchfield.

The movie has also been a solid performer at the box office and with critics, earning $126 million worldwide against a reported $75 million budget. It currently sits at 95% with critics and 96% with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, giving Jackman one of the strongest-reviewed movies of his career. And it’s absolutely deserved, too. This is a wonderful little film, and it will both charm you and break your heart in equal measure.

Collider’s **Tania Hussain **called the film one of the year’s “most delightful surprises,” writing, “The Sheep Detectives is a charming, smart, and sincerely heartfelt whodunit that proves even the smallest voices can carry the biggest stories.”

The Sheep Detectives is now streaming on Prime Video.

Bryan Cranston

Hugh Jackman

Nicholas Galitzine

Nicholas Braun