Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
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50 free Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri turns one furious gesture into a whole town's reckoning. Mildred Hayes rents three roadside signs to ask why nobody has been arrested for the killing of her daughter, and the film follows the damage, the dark jokes and the unlikely alliances that come after. This quiz covers the story beat by beat, the actors and the characters they play, how the film was written and shot, its run through festivals and awards season, and the protests around the world that borrowed its three-sign format. It is written for people who have seen the film at least once. The early questions stick to the moments everyone remembers, and the later ones reward viewers who stayed for the credits and followed the awards race.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actress won her second Best Actress Oscar as Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards?
Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand had her new statuette stolen briefly after the awards ceremony. She won it for playing a grieving mother who challenges her local police force.
Q 02What is true of Ebbing, the Missouri town where Mildred Hayes rents her three roadside billboards?
It is entirely fictional
It is entirely fictional: no such town exists in Missouri, and the streets seen on screen belong to a real mountain town in a different state.
Q 03Which actor won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the bullying Officer Jason Dixon in Three Billboards?
Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell had the part of Dixon written specially for him. Wanting Dixon to be the exact opposite of Mildred, he took inspiration from the screen tough guy Lee Marvin.
Q 04Which Cheers star plays Bill Willoughby, the police chief singled out by name in Three Billboards?
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role, which put him in the same category as one of his own co-stars from the film.
Q 05Which Game of Thrones star plays James, who gives Mildred Hayes an alibi in Three Billboards?
Peter Dinklage
Peter Dinklage plays James, who happens to pass by and puts out Dixon's burning clothes before covering for Mildred. She later thanks him with a dinner date.
Q 06What does Mildred Hayes hurl at the Ebbing police station after her billboards are destroyed by fire?
Molotov cocktails
Molotov cocktails set the station ablaze while Dixon is inside reading a letter. A passer-by puts out his burning clothes and then covers for Mildred.
Q 07Which terminal illness does police chief Bill Willoughby have in Three Billboards, an open secret around town?
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer is why many townspeople resent the billboards: they see Mildred as hounding a dying man. Willoughby even coughs blood onto her during questioning.
Q 08To which state do Mildred Hayes and Dixon set off at the end of Three Billboards, pursuing a suspected rapist?
Idaho
Idaho is the state on the license plate Dixon noted outside a bar. On the road the pair admit they are unsure about killing the man and agree to decide along the way.
Q 09Which filmmaker wrote and directed Three Billboards, earning an Oscar nomination for its original screenplay?
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh said it took him about ten years to decide that a mother had put up the real accusatory roadside signs he once passed, and to build a story around her.
Q 10Which film beat Three Billboards to the Best Picture Oscar at the 90th Academy Awards?
The Shape of Water
The Shape of Water took four Oscars that night, more than any other film, while Three Billboards went home with two acting awards from its seven nominations.
Q 11In which state was Three Billboards actually filmed, around the mountain town of Sylva?
North Carolina
North Carolina hosted the 33-day shoot, and the billboards themselves stood in a pasture near Black Mountain, about 60 miles east of the main location.
Q 12The star who plays Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards won her first Oscar as a police chief in which film?
Fargo
Fargo brought her the award for playing the pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson, a character the American Film Institute later ranked among its greatest screen heroes.
Q 13Which US president did the actor who plays Officer Dixon in Three Billboards portray a year later in Vice?
George W. Bush
Q 21Besides a DNA mismatch, what clears the bar patron of Angela's killing in Three Billboards?
He was serving overseas
He was serving overseas on military duty when Angela died. Mildred and Dixon still believe he attacked someone else, which is why they go after him anyway.
Q 22On what charge does Dixon arrest Denise, a friend of Mildred Hayes, to put pressure on her in Three Billboards?
Drug possession
Drug possession, and a trivial charge at that: the arrest was suggested by Dixon's own mother as a way to lean on Mildred.
Q 23According to Chief Willoughby's letter in Three Billboards, what must Dixon embrace to become a detective one day?
Love
George W. Bush brought him a second straight Oscar nomination, in Adam McKay's biopic, the year after his win as Dixon.
Q 14What does Mildred Hayes do to the dentist who menaces her during an appointment in Three Billboards?
Drills into his thumbnail
She drills into his thumbnail, which gets her brought in for questioning. The dentist had sided with the police chief over her billboards.
Q 15How does Chief Willoughby die in Three Billboards, after an idyllic day with his wife and children?
He takes his own life
He takes his own life that night to spare his family from watching him die slowly, leaving behind letters for Mildred and Dixon.
Q 16Who drunkenly sets fire to Mildred Hayes's billboards in Three Billboards, as he later admits in a restaurant?
Her ex-husband
Her ex-husband owns up while she is out on a date, leaving her unnerved that she had already retaliated against the wrong target.
Q 17What does Chief Willoughby's letter to Mildred Hayes reveal he secretly paid for in Ebbing, Missouri?
A month's billboard rent
A month's billboard rent was his parting gesture. The letter also tells Mildred that she played no part in his death and that he did care about getting justice for Angela.
Q 18With his clothes on fire, what does Officer Dixon carry out of the blazing police station in Three Billboards?
The murder case file
The murder case file survives because Dixon grabs it on his way out, moments after he was reading a letter left for him by his late boss.
Q 19How does Dixon obtain a DNA sample from the stranger he overhears bragging in a bar in Three Billboards?
Scratches his face
Dixon scratches his face on purpose, then passively accepts the beating that follows. He also notes the man's license plate before leaving.
Q 20In Three Billboards, whom does Dixon throw from a second-storey window after learning of Chief Willoughby's death?
Red Welby
Red Welby is the man who rented Mildred the billboards. The attack gets Dixon fired, and the two later end up sharing a hospital room.
Love, the letter says, in place of the hate he carries. Dixon is inside reading it when the police station catches fire around him.
Q 24Before agreeing to play Mildred in Three Billboards, its star suggested the character should be Angela's what?
Grandmother
Grandmother was her suggestion, because she felt too old to play Angela's mother, but the director disagreed, feeling it would change the story too much.
Q 25Which Western film icon did the lead actress of Three Billboards use as her inspiration for playing Mildred Hayes?
John Wayne
John Wayne was her model because she approached Mildred as the protagonist of a modern-style Western. Her co-star then picked a rival Western tough guy for Dixon.
Q 26Which filmmaker, married to the Three Billboards lead actress since 1984, persuaded her to play Mildred Hayes?
Joel Coen
Joel Coen talked her round after she had doubts about the part. She made her film debut in Blood Simple, the first film he made with his brother.
Q 27The real roadside signs that inspired Three Billboards were spotted near the town of Vidor in which state?
Texas
Texas is where a grieving father, James Fulton, had posted signs along Interstate 10 accusing the police of failing over the 1991 killing of his daughter Kathy Page.
Q 28Why were the prop signs built for Three Billboards usually kept covered when the cameras were not rolling?
Locals found them upsetting
Locals found them upsetting, so the messages were hidden between takes. The timber later became a roof in Douglas Lake, Tennessee, with the wording no longer legible.
Q 29Which composer, also Oscar-nominated for Carol, wrote the score for Three Billboards?
Carter Burwell
Carter Burwell built Mildred a war-march theme on guitar, mandolin and strings after the director told him the film was about a woman at war with the police.
Q 30Before making films, the writer-director of Three Billboards first made his name in the 1990s as what?
A playwright
A playwright first: his dark comedies set in the west of Ireland reached Broadway and the West End, and some theatres refused them over their language.