Hidden Figures

Based on the nonfiction book by Margot Lee Shetterly, HIDDEN FIGURES is the true story of three African-American women who worked for NASA in the 1950s and '60s. They served as "human computers," doing complex mathematics and engineering tasks to help launch the manned spaceflight program -- particularly, sending astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) are all brilliant women who've landed jobs as computers at NASA's Langley Research Center (in the segregated West Area Computers division). When Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), director of the Space Task Group, needs someone who can do theoretical math to help NASA with calculations that would outperform the Russians in the Space Race, Katherine is assigned to his team. Meanwhile, Dorothy struggles to be named supervisor of her group, and Mary goes to court so she can go to graduate school for engineering.