Surely you didn't think it was a team of all white men that landed Americans on the moon and helped NASA win the space race?
Hidden Figures tells the story of the Black women whose scientific achievements have largely been left out of NASA's history. Mathematician Katherine Johnson, along with Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, were among the scientists who helped John Glenn make the first complete orbit of Earth. Despite Jim Crow laws and institutional sexism, the women crunched the numbers to make space exploration possible.
The movie is based on the nonfiction book of the same name written by Margot Lee Shetterly, out this September. "Before John Glenn orbited Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as 'human computers' used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space," reads the book's description. "Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation."
Taraji P. Henson stars as Johnson. Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe play Vaughn and Jackson, respectively. Hidden Figures, which is set for release on January 13, 2017, also features Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.