Owen Gleiberman of '' Variety '' praised the film 's performances , stating " It 's Mildred 's glowering refusal to back down that defines her , and McDormand brilliantly spotlights the conflicted humanity beneath the stony façade , " and called Rockwell 's performance a " revelation . " Steve Pond , writing for '' TheWrap '' , praised McDonagh 's writing , calling it " Very funny , very violent and surprisingly moving . " Some criticized the script for McDonagh 's portrayal of small town America . '' The New York Times '' columnist Wesley Morris called McDonagh 's portrayal of rural America a caricature : " a set of postcards from a Martian lured to America by a cable news ticker and by rumors of how easily flattered and provoked we are . " Tim Parks in '' The New Yorker '' praised the " magnificently photographed images " , but wrote that the plot contained " a thousand cheap coincidences " . He concluded that the film is " empty of emotional intelligence " and " devoid of any remotely honest observation of the society it purports to serve . " In her review for '' The New York Times '' , Manohla Dargis wrote " McDonagh 's jokes can be uninterestingly glib with tiny , bloodless pricks that are less about challenging the audience than about obscuring the material 's clichés and overriding theatricality . " The film was also controversial for its handling of racial themes , particularly surrounding the redemptive arc of Officer Dixon . In '' The Daily Beast '' , blogger Ira Madison III called the treatment of Rockwell 's character " altogether offensive ... McDonagh 's attempts to script the black experience in America are often fumbling and backward and full of outdated tropes . " Alyssa Rosenberg noted in '' The Washington Post '' that " Dixon 's redemption does n't merely defang his previous venomous bigotry ; it softens Mildred 's character development . " At the 75th Golden Globe Awards , '' Three Billboards Outside Ebbing , Missouri '' won for Best Motion Picture – Drama , Best Actress – Drama ( McDormand ) , Best Supporting Actor ( Rockwell ) , and Best Screenplay , and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Score . At the 71st British Academy Film Awards , it received nine nominations , including Best Film , Best Director , and Best Actress in a Leading Role ( McDormand ) , and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for both Rockwell and Harrelson . It won five awards , including Best Film and Outstanding British Film ( making it the only film along with '' The King 's Speech '' to win both awards since the latter category was reintroduced in 1992 ) while both McDormand and Rockwell won the Lead Actress and Supporting Actor awards respectively . It was nominated for four awards at the 24th Screen Actors Guild Awards , winning three , including Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture . At the 90th Academy Awards it received seven nominations , including Best Picture , Best Actress for Frances McDormand , Best Original Screenplay for Martin McDonagh and two Best Supporting Actor nominations for both Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson . McDormand and Rockwell took home their respective awards
24th Screen Actors Guild Awards
24th Screen Actors Guild Awards
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri