History Film / ThreeBillboardsOutsideEbbingMissouri

* BloodFromTheMouth: A sign of doom for Willoughby when he coughs out blood smearing Mildred.

* CentralTheme: As found by Charlie's ditsy girlfriend on a bookmark she had, "Anger begets more anger". It is only when Mildred and Dixon try to move past their anger at others that they are able to make personal progress.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Willoughby shoots himself in the head since he knows his cancer will kill him anyway, and he didn't want to endure any more pain caused by the disease, as well as watching his wife and daughters suffer watching him deteriorate.]]

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Dixon states an official complaint against the billboards came from "a fat dentist". The very next scene is [[spoiler: Mildred having her teeth worked on by the very same; she finds out in a tense, nerve-wracking scene that he is friends with Willoughby.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mildred is a grieving mother who just wants her daughter's rapist/murderer found, but the lengths she goes to and her general unpleasant personality manages to make her very unsympathetic at times. On the other side, we have the police, specifically Dixon, who is a very racist incompetent cop, but one who respects his boss Willoughby deeply and who really did want to do good in his community and [[spoiler:eventually achieves redemption.]]

* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: Dixon fails to notice that something is seriously wrong in the office ([[spoiler:i.e. that Chief Willoughby has committed suicide]]) because he s listening to "Chiquitita" by Music/{{ABBA}}. A more serious example happens when he returns to the police station late at night and fails to hear the phone ringing [[spoiler:(which is Mildred calling to make sure the station is empty before she firebombs it)]], and fails to notice that the station [[spoiler:is on fire.]]

* ITakeOffenceToThatLastOne: When Robbie calls Mildred "an old cunt", Mildred snaps back "I'm not old!" (although it is done with good humor, to show that she didn't take the insult seriously).

** At one point, she has an argument with her son about the billboards, during which he explodes and points out that in his struggle to process the horrible way his sister died and his grief over it, the last thing he wants is to see three huge billboards barely 500 feet away from his own home boldly proclaiming what happened to all who pass by them. From the taken-aback look on her face and the almost pathetically quiet way she tries to defend herself, it's pretty clear that Mildred is just realising that she didn't consider even for a second what effect her billboards would have on her son.

* NobleBigotWithABadge: Most of the cops (hell, most of the people of Ebbing) say or do things that could lightly be described as "offensive", particularly Dixon. Willoughby tells Mildred that, "If he fired every racist cop, he would have three left," and [[CrossesTheLineTwice they would be homophobes.]] That said, most of the cops are portrayed as at least trying to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. [[spoiler:This includes Dixon, albeit only after he no longer has a badge.]]

* WorldOfSnark: Everyone who isn't delivering cruel lines is stupid enough to earn being snarked at (i.e Penelope).

** While he’s far from an extra if you only looked at the advertising, then you’d think that Willoughby is the movie’s second biggest role, when in actuality, it’s Dixon.

-->'''Dixon:''' About [[spoiler:killin’ this guy]]? Not really. You?

* AgeGapRomance: Although not commented on, Chief Willoughby is visibly and considerably older than his wife.[[note]]The actors are 21 years apart in age.[[/note]]

* DeadStarWalking: Downplayed with [[spoiler: Chief Willoughby (played by Creator/WoodyHarrelson). He is DrivenToSuicide early in the film, but his voice is heard thrice after through the letters he left behind for Mildred, Dixon, and his wife Anne.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Abercrombie ([[spoiler:the replace for Willoughby after his suicide]]) fires Dixon immediately after witnessing the latter [[spoiler:throwing Red out a window]] and is extremely reasonable when dealing with Mildred.

* PartingWordsRegret: In a flashback, Angela storms out of the house saying she hopes she gets raped. Mildred responds "Yeah, I hope you get raped too."

* MayDecemberRomance:
** Despite being in his fifties, Charlie has been dating a nineteen-year-old, which he has no problem admitting is a way to cope with his grief.
** Although not commented on, Chief Willoughby is visibly and considerably older than his wife.[[note]]The actors are 21 years apart in age.[[/note]]

* CrazyPrepared: Mildred stored a fire extinguisher in her car which comes in handy when putting out the billboard fire.

* DeadManWriting: [[spoiler:Chief Willoughby [[VoiceoverLetter narrates is own suicide letter]], as well as the ones he leaves for the other characters.]]

* EasilyForgiven: At the end, when [[spoiler:Mildred and Dixon are driving to Idaho to maybe kill a rapist (not the one who killed Mildred's daughter), Mildred confesses that she was the one who burned down the police station (and seriously burned half of Dixon's body, she didn't know he was inside), he just casually says "Who the fuck else would it be?"]]

* ArtisticLicenseLaw:
** At one point Dixon [[spoiler:beats Red to a pulp and throws him out of ''a second story window'']] in front of a street full of witnesses, including [[spoiler:the new chief of police.]] His only punishment is [[spoiler:getting fired]] instead of, you know, [[spoiler:being immediately arrested for assault and attempted murder.]]
** When the [[spoiler: new chief]] walks in and introduces himself to the assembled Ebbing Police, the desk sergeant asks him to prove who he is. The [[spoiler: chief]] acts like this an absurd request and doesn't even bother to show them his badge. Somewhat justified in that he had just seen [[spoiler: Dixon violently assault two people, and wasn't particularly impressed with the other cops, [[PoliceAreUseless who were actively ignoring it.]]]]

* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: Dixon fails to notice that something is seriously wrong in the office ([[spoiler:i.e. that Chief Willoughby has committed suicide]]) because he is listening to "Chiquitita" by Music/{{ABBA}}. A more serious example happens when he returns to the police station late at night and fails to hear the phone ringing [[spoiler:(which is Mildred calling to make sure the station is empty before she firebombs it)]], and fails to notice that the station [[spoiler:is on fire.]]

* BillboardEpic: Mildred's call-out to Chief Willoughby is put on the eponymous three billboards, which obviously are meant to be read in sequence while driving into Ebbing.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Mildred is horrified when she realizes that she burned down the police station while Dixon was still inside.]]

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Upon discovering the first billboard as it's being put up, Dixon calls the first painter (a Latino) a "beaner". The second painter (an African-American) also gets the obvious profiling attitude coming from Dixon, and later, Red taunts Dixon over practicing PoliceBrutality on blacks as well as Mildred calling out the police for prioritizing arresting black people for no reason when she's interviewed. Likewise, Mildred calls Dixon out for his "negro-torturing" and Dixon tries to claim that he doesn't and that [[MoralMyopia it's "person-of-color-torturing"]].

* EveryoneHasStandards: [[spoiler:Before throwing Molotov cocktails at the police station, Mildred calls several times to make sure no one's inside -- though Dixon doesn't notice.]]

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Upon discovering the first billboard as it's being put up, Dixon calls the first painter (a Latino) a "beaner". The second painter (an African-American) also gets the obvious profiling attitude coming from Dixon, and later, Red taunts Dixon over practicing PoliceBrutality on blacks as well as Mildred calling out the police for prioritizing arresting black people for no reason when she's interviewed.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Upon discovering the first billboard as it's being put up, Dixon calls the first painter (a Latino) a "beaner". The second painter (an African-American) also gets the obvious profiling attitude coming from Dixon, and later, Red taunts Dixon over practicing PoliceBrutality on blacks.

Months after her daughter is brutally murdered, Mildred Hayes ([=McDormand=]) buys the advertising rights to [[TitleDrop three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri]] and broadcasts the police department's inefficiency at finding any leads on the case. This puts Mildred in a town-wide controversy concerning her words against the recently cancer-diagnosed Police Chief Bill Willoughby (Harrelson), who is also fiercely backed by the angry, racist Officer Jason Dixon (Rockwell). Determined to keep the case in the public eye, Mildred loses favor with the townspeople as she continues to harass the police department, fueling a war that starts to take a violent turn.

* TurnOfTheMillennium: At first glance the movie seems contemporary in setting, but upon closer inspection it doesn't quite seem to be ThePresentDay relative to its release in the mid-2010s: it looks modern enough, and one character uses "Google" as a verb, but there's a good mix of old cars as far back as TheEighties if not earlier alongside the vaguely post-millennium cars, and the film is virtually devoid of smartphones or social media use: the only mobile phone shown is a flip phone used for a call, and that's about it. Plausibly the movie could be set as far back as the mid-2000s.

* PresentDayPast: At first glance the movie seems contemporary in setting, but upon closer inspection it doesn't quite seem to be ThePresentDay relative to its release in the mid-2010s: it looks modern enough, and one character uses "Google" as a verb, but there's a good mix of old cars as far back as TheEighties if not earlier alongside the vaguely post-millennium cars, and the film is virtually devoid of smartphones or social media use: the only mobile phone shown is a flip phone used for a call, and that's about it. Plausibly the movie could be set as far back as the mid-2000s.

* UsefulNotes/TheNewMillennium: At first glance the movie seems contemporary in setting, but upon closer inspection it doesn't quite seem to be ThePresentDay relative to its release in the mid-2010s: it looks modern enough, and one character uses "Google" as a verb, but there's a good mix of old cars as far back as TheEighties if not earlier alongside the vaguely post-millennium cars, and the film is virtually devoid of smartphones or social media use: the only mobile phone shown is a flip phone used for a call, and that's about it. Plausibly the movie could be set as far back as the mid-2000s.

* TheNewMillennium: It's not entirely clear what era the movie's set in, but it doesn't quite seem to be ThePresentDay relative to its release in the mid-2010s: it looks modern enough, and one character uses "Google" as a verb, but there's a good mix of old cars as far back as TheEighties if not earlier alongside the vaguely post-millennium cars, and the film is virtually devoid of smartphones or social media use: the only mobile phone shown is a flip phone used for a call, and that's about it.

* TheOner: The scene of Dixon leaving the station to assault the ad shop workers and returning is done in one long take.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Willoughby shoots himself in the head since he knows his cancer will kill him anyway, and he didn't want to endure anymore pain caused by the disease, as well as watching his wife and daughters suffer watching him deteriorate.]]

* EmpathyDollShot: During Willoughby's DeadManWriting speech we get a shot of a teddy bear on the river side where his children played earlier.

** Willoughby himself states he found it amusing that Mildred drilled a hole in big fat Geoffrey's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment big fat thumb]].

** At one point Dixon [[spoiler:beats Red to a pulp and throws him out of ''a second story window'']] in front of a street full of witnesses, including [[spoiler:the new chief of police]]. His only punishment is [[spoiler:getting fired]] instead of, you know, [[spoiler:being immediately arrested for assault and attempted murder]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Mildred reads [[spoiler:one of Willoughby's suicide notes]], he suggests that someone down the line will get caught bragging to a buddy over what they did to Angela. [[spoiler:Dixon overhears a man that previously threatened Mildred boasting to a friend over a crime he committed similar in nature to what happened to Angela, [[SubvertedTrope but it turns out]] [[RedHerring he is not her actual killer]].]]
* {{Forgiveness}}: The film's central theme.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Mildred is a grieving mother who just wants her daughter's rapist/muderer found, but the lengths she goes to and her general unpleasant personality manages to make her very unsympathetic at times. On the other side, we have the police, specifically Dixon, who is a very racist incompetent cop, but one who respects his boss Willoughby deeply and who really did want to do good in his community and [[spoiler:eventually achieves redemption.]]

* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: Dixon fails to notice that something is seriously wrong in the office (i.e. that Chief Willoughby has committed suicide) because he is listening to "Chiquitita" by Music/{{ABBA}}. A more serious example happens when he returns to the police station late at night and fails to hear the phone ringing [[spoiler:(which is Mildred calling to make sure the station is empty before she firebombs it)]], and fails to notice that the station [[spoiler:is on fire]].

** While Mildred has several MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments, it seems to be when James delivers his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about how angry she is that she fully realises just how low her anger and hate have caused her to sink.
** [[spoiler:Dixon gets one from Willoughby's letter, which admonishes him that his hate is keeping him from being a good detective, and that he needs to embrace love in order to do so]].

* ITakeOffenceToThatLastOne: When Robbie calls Mildred "an old cunt", Mildred snaps back "I'm not old!" (although it is done with good humour, to show that she didn't take the insult seriously).

* MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: Chief Willoughby takes his family on a picnic out by the lake. While the children are playing, the chief and his wife sneak away to have sex outdoors. [[spoiler:That evening Chief Willoughby commits suicide]].

** Although not commented on, Chief Willoughby is visibly and considerably older than his wife[[note]]The actors are 21 years apart in age.[[/note]].
* MolotovCocktail: [[spoiler:Mildred]] uses several to firebomb the [[spoiler:police station]].

* NobleBigotWithABadge: Most of the cops (hell, most of the people of Ebbing) say or do things that could lightly be described as "offensive", particularly Dixon. Willoughby tells Mildred that, "If he fired every racist cop, he would have three left," and [[CrossesTheLineTwice they would be homophobes]]. That said, most of the cops are portrayed as at least trying to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. [[spoiler:This includes Dixon, albeit only after he no longer has a badge.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Abercrombie fires Dixon immediately after witnessing the him [[spoiler:throwing Red out a window]] and is extremely reasonable when dealing with Mildred.

** [[spoiler:Dixon assaults Red in full view of bystanders. After Dixon leaves, one of the bystanders moves his jacket aside to reveal a badge of his own. He's the new chief]].