Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.

Director:

Martin McDonagh

Writer:

Martin McDonagh

Stars:

Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell

Top Rated Movies #151 | Won 2 Oscars. Another 130 wins & 227 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Frances McDormand	...	Mildred
Caleb Landry Jones	...	Red Welby
Kerry Condon	...	Pamela
Sam Rockwell	...	Dixon
Alejandro Barrios	...	Latino
Jason Ledford	...	Latino #2
Darrell Britt-Gibson	...	Jerome
Woody Harrelson	...	Willoughby
Abbie Cornish	...	Anne
Riya May Atwood	...	Polly
Selah Atwood	...	Jane
Lucas Hedges	...	Robbie
Zeljko Ivanek	...	Desk Sergeant
Amanda Warren	...	Denise
Malaya Rivera Drew	...	Gabriella

Storyline

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell), an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.

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Plot Keywords:

billboard | police brutality | black comedy | ambiguous ending | thrown through a window | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references

Did You Know?

Trivia

The sequence where Dixon assaults Red Welby and throws him out the window was done in one continuous take. According to director Martin McDonagh, they filmed the scene five different times and the shot used in the film was take #4.

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Goofs

At the beginning of the movie, when the mother is driving by the billboards, and then backing up, and then going forward again, the head above the driver's headrest changes height from where the actual actress' head reaches - driving double.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Mildred Hayes: [walking into his office] You Red Welby?
Red Welby: Yes, ma'am. How may I help you?
Mildred Hayes: I heard there's three billboards out on Drinkwater Road. You're in charge of renting them out, that right?
Red Welby: I didn't know we had any billboards out on Drinkwater. Where is Drinkwater Road?
Mildred Hayes: It's a road out past the Sizemore turn-off. Nobody uses it since the freeway got put in.
Red Welby: You are right. Got three billboards out there. Nobody's put nothing up out there since 1986. That was 'Huggies'.
Mildred Hayes: How much to rent out all three...
[...]

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Connections

Referenced in Monkey in the Morning: OMG, Why We Have to Talk About Really Long Titles (2019)

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Soundtracks

iNergy
Written by Stephen Arnold (SESAC)
Published by The Stephen Arnold Group (SESAC)

User Reviews

A dark, twisted comedy about grief, tragedy and three billboards

Having recently won the People's Choice Awards at TIFF, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is very easy to see why it won.

Three Billboards is a dark but also funny and heart-felt story about one woman's quest to get justice for her daughter's rape and murder. After Mildred Haynes buys three billboards with words written on them accusing the town's well-liked sheriff of having not found her daughter's killer, it sets a series of events that turns the citizens and the cops against her.

The thing I can say about Three Billboards without going into spoilers is that it is wildly unpredictable. One moment you think things are going one direction as expected then it takes hard left turn that only adds to the dynamic between the characters. As the pressure within the town builds and anger is pointed towards Mildred, we see many of these characters evolve in order to deal with tragedy and grief and learn to find peace. And the movie goes through a roller-coaster of emotions. One moment you are laughing your butt off from the hilarious dialogue then you feel like someone just punched you in the gut. With every victory you think this story brings you feel like it was taken away from because of the world's unfairness and injustice. In lesser hands the mixture of dark and comedic tones would not work, but director and writer Martin McDonagh knows how to balance them to perfection.

The performances here just through the roof. Frances McDormand delivers a performance that will for sure get her into the Lead Actress awards race at the Oscars. As Mildred, McDormand just cuts loose with her performance with every line of hate, cynicism and cursing towards everyone she feels doesn't truly understand the internal pain she is going through. But McDormand does now and then show a soft side to Mildred. It shows that Mildred is just person like everyone who has her own way of dealing with the tragedy of loosing her own child. And Sam Rockwell also gives one of the best performances of his career as the flawed and very misguided cop Dixon. The character of Dixon is short-tempered, volatile, and not bright with some baggage of his own that the locals accuse him of. But Sam Rockwell brings his charm and sincerity to what could be a rather unlikable character. And in the latter half, you see Dixon go through a tremendous arc of learning to care about others rather then just being angry towards them. Other great performances that should be called out are Woody Harrelson, Peter Dinklage, John Hawk and Caleb Landry Jones.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is easily one of the best movies this year and is worth seeing once it comes out in wide releases.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Site

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 December 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Three Billboards

Filming Locations:

Asheville, North Carolina, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$322,168, 12 November 2017

Gross USA:

$54,513,740

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$160,192,031

Company Credits

Production Co:

Blueprint Pictures, Film 4, Fox Searchlight Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1