Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

"The fine Frances McDormand headlines Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri as Mildred Hayes, the mother of a murdered teenage girl who erects giant roadside signs declaring her daughter was “Raped while dying” and fingering local police for not finding the perpetrator. The buzz around the film suggests writer/director Martin McDonagh has constructed something smart, topical and politically progressive, exploring sexism and inert authorities entrenched in an odious system."

"Writer/Director Martin McDonagh follows his uproariously funny In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths with that rarest of cinematic treats, an entertaining and stimulating movie, with a superb script, rich characters and a cracking cast. Think the dramatic power of Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, and the outrageous humour of The Big Lebowski, and you’re within a billboard’s-length of getting the picture."

"It’s far from a masterpiece, yet it holds you, it adds up, and it’s something to see."

"For a story built on such dark foundations, it’s weirdly reassuring. It’s also enormous fun."

"It all makes for soaringly satisfying viewing, yet the satisfaction comes from blistering performances and virtuosic screenwriting, and absolutely nothing else."

"A bold and showboating affair, robustly drawn and richly written; a violent carnival of small-town American life. Yet it has a big, beating heart, even a rough-edged compassion for its brawling inhabitants."

"Can be celebrated for putting the 60-year old McDormand centrestage and letting her tongue rip, and for the slightly risqué manner in which it elicits laughs/gasps from its viewers."

"It's a renegade masterpiece that will get you good."

"While the film continues almost throughout to generate great whoops of shocking laughter, it's the notes of genuine sorrow, compassion and contrition that resonate."

"Illuminates the multifarious despicable ways that humans treat each other…"