Hidden Figures: Book vs. Movie
Theodore Melfi's 2016 film Hidden Figures adapts Margot Lee Shetterly's nonfiction book. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe play Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson at NASA.
About the book and the movie
- Author
- Margot Lee Shetterly
- Year
- 2016
- Pages
- 368Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 10 hr 47 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Robin Miles
Margot Lee Shetterly traces the careers of Black women whose mathematical work supports American aviation research and the space program. Following figures including Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, she places their achievements within the segregated workplaces and communities they navigate. The history spans wartime recruitment, changing technology and the struggle to secure recognition and opportunity.
- Director
- Theodore Melfi
- Writer
- Theodore Melfi, Margot Lee Shetterly, Allison Schroeder
- Year
- 2016
- Runtime
- 2 hr 7 minWatch on Amazon
- Cast
- Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner
- Genre
- biographical, drama
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
At NASA's Langley facility, Katherine Johnson is assigned calculations vital to sending an American astronaut into orbit. Her colleagues Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson pursue supervisory recognition and engineering qualifications while the workplace keeps putting racial and gender barriers in their way. As launch deadlines approach and electronic computers arrive, all three must fight for access to the work they are capable of doing.
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