Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri seems to have positioned itself shrewdly at the junction of two contemporary issues, female rage and empowerment (that counts for one), and police misconduct. But the script turns out to have been written eight years ago. At its core, Martin McDonagh's third feature, set in a fictional town in the Ozarks, is a tale of revenge, a testament to the power of grief and the possibility of forgiveness, and a hurtling account of how violence begets violence, with a time-out to ask who actually uses the word 'begets.'

Photo: Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri