During dinner the system is working like a well-oiled machine. It constantly and solely feeds the few that foolishly consume all the resources while the rest survive on what little falls off the table. Inevitably when the supply is depleted the struggle for what's left leads to a catastrophic change. Sadly the offspring of this profound transition turns out to be not a sign of hope but the spitting image of the parents. The film is a sociopolitical allegory of our society.

After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.