‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ Wins Top Prize at Toronto

Moviegoers at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday gave the event’s top prize, the Grolsch People’s Choice Award, to the dark comic drama “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” starring Frances McDormand.

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Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, the film, which also took best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival earlier in the month, tracks a mother’s efforts to get investigators, including a police chief played by Woody Harrelson, to solve her daughter’s killing. The Toronto honor is usually a reliable predictor of a film’s awards season chances. Past winners have included “La La Land” and “12 Years a Slave.”

Two more people’s choice prizes were announced in Toronto, part of the 40th year that audiences were in charge of picking the winners. The documentary award went to “Faces Places” by Agnès Varda and the visual artist JR. The film follows Ms. Varda, 88, and JR, 33, as they tour the French countryside photographing locals (and goats). Joseph Kahn’s “Bodied,” a rap battle satire featuring a surprisingly talented scrawny white protagonist, took the midnight madness award.

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