Three Billboards and The Meyerowitz Stories prove that great casting makes great movies

They're not just stocked with familiar faces. They're stocked with the right familiar faces.

Sam Rockwell and Frances McDormand in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
(Image credit: Merrick Morton/21st Century Fox Searchlight)

For nearly 20 years now, Sam Rockwell has been American independent cinema's secret weapon. He can play leads, or shine in glorified cameo roles. He's naturally funny, but excels in drama, and even genre films. With his rubbery frame, deep-set eyes, and sun-baked California drawl, the actor's wiry energy dominates any scene he's in. Wherever Rockwell's placed, he's perfect.

Rockwell gets one of the best roles of his career in writer-director Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (opening in select theaters on November 10), playing Officer Jason Dixon, a dimwitted small-town racist policeman. McDonagh is a Tony-nominated playwright whose previous films are the acclaimed In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths (the latter featuring another stellar Rockwell performance). He favors irony and ambiguity, like the killer with a bleeding heart, or the righteous soul who goes too far in the pursuit of justice. He and Rockwell turn Jason Dixon into one of the most confounding characters of the movie year. He's a man at once hilariously juvenile and genuinely dangerous, and the journey he takes from heel to near-hero in Three Billboards is a big part of what makes this film special.

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Noel Murray

Noel Murray is a freelance writer, living in Arkansas with his wife and two kids. He was one of the co-founders of the late, lamented movie/culture website The Dissolve, and his articles about film, TV, music, and comics currently appear regularly in The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.