One year after the horrific rape and murder of her daughter, Mildred Hayes (McDormand), furious that the local police seem to have shelved the investigation permanently, makes public her frustrations on three rented billboards on the outskirts of town. This act sets in motion events that will change the lives of the people of Ebbing, Missouri forever.

Directed by Martin McDonagh – known for the similarly dark and hilarious In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths – Three Billboards tells a very different story to the usual redemptive, justice-seeking fable that the premise of this film would suggest. McDormand’s performance as Mildred is electric, as she tears around town, an incendiary force of nature in overalls. Ebbing’s well-meaning, harried Chief of Police Willoughby (Harrelson), and his cruel, dull-witted offsider Dixon (played with loathsome aplomb by Sam Rockwell) are among those swept up in the wake of Mildred’s crusade to turn the town upside-down in search of answers.

While the subject matter at hand is indeed grim and at times heartbreaking, the film is laced with McDonagh’s trademark jet-black humour and his ear for fantastic dialogue, and is as good as small-town crime drama comes.

The Great American Dream: white picket fences, neatly manicured lawns, children playing in the street, where the postman knows your name and you never have to lock the front door of the house that looks just like every other in your idyllic community.

Family man Gardner Lodge (Damon) is living this dream, along with wife Rose (Moore) and son Nicky (Jupe) in the small, quaint town of Suburbicon during the 1950s. But its residents are soon forced to come to terms (very poorly) with the arrival of an African-American family moving into their whitewashed neighbourhood. With racial tensions sparking, Gardner finds himself also dealing with his own life-changing event as his world begins to unravel around him and the façade of his perfect life starts to crumble. And when everybody knows your business, secrets are hard to keep.

Directed by George Clooney and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, Suburbicon tells a dark, sometimes grisly, often funny, and thoroughly entertaining tale of suburban decay.