Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Here’s the catch with Three Billboards: it asks you to root for a cop who throws a man out a second-story window, and it asks pretty fast. People still argue about it. Sam Rockwell’s Dixon is violent, racist and not very bright, and the second half builds him a redemption arc that feels a few steps too tidy. Still, look at what’s around him. Frances McDormand plays Mildred, a mother whose daughter was murdered months ago with no arrest, and she puts her anger on three giant signs aimed at the local police chief. She wears coveralls like armor and never asks anybody to like her. Woody Harrelson’s Chief Willoughby is decent in a way that makes everything harder. Martin McDonagh’s dialogue is sharp and darkly funny, but the grief underneath it is real and the movie never laughs at it. An 8.4 because it’s furious, funny and sad in the same breath, even if it lets Dixon off easy. $277 says you drive past a billboard this week and read every word of it twice.

What works: Frances McDormand’s fierce, unsmiling Mildred, Woody Harrelson’s quiet decency, and dialogue that finds dark laughs without ever mocking the grief.

What doesn’t: Dixon’s turn from violent racist cop to almost-hero happens too quickly and too neatly to fully believe.

Who it’s for: People who like small-town dramas with sharp dialogue and don’t need anyone on screen to be a clean hero.