While Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri’s Mildred Hayes may go down as cinema history’s ultimate anti-heroine, Officer Dixon deserves kudos as her outclassed nemesis-turned-ally. In the film’s memorable ensemble, Mildred is played with unbridled cynicism and priceless, profane sarcasm by the inimitable Frances McDormand. She’s an inconsolable grieving mother with a triple-billboard-sized grudge and a fathomless rage demanding to be reckoned with. The ones doing the reckoning are the local police force: the beloved but ineffective Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and his hotheaded junior officer Dixon, a dimwitted, heavy-drinking momma's boy with a penchant for brutality, notably played by Sam Rockwell (MVFF49 Tributee and Oscar® winner for this performance)—with both hilarious and incendiary consequences. British playwright-turned-film-maker Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths, MVFF35; Wild Horse Nine, MVFF49 Opening Night) brings his singular brand of violence and black humor to this renegade masterpiece that surprises at every turn. But one thing remains constant: Hell definitely hath no fury like a Mildred Hayes ignored. Just ask Officer Dixon. —Joanne Parsont