Hidden Figures

A closer look at the story

As the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union rages on, an exceptional team at NASA is quietly changing history. Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine G. Johnson are gifted African-American women mathematicians and the brains of a historic undertaking: sending astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Yet because they are both women and Black, they must fight racial discrimination and gender barriers every single day. The untold true story of these three women is also a story of the struggle for equal rights and opportunity. Directed by Theodore Melfi, who wrote it with Allison Schroeder, the 127-minute 2016 film stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe and Kevin Costner in an inspiring historical drama.