History Film / HiddenFigures

''Hidden Figures'' is a 2016 biographical comedy-drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder, based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. The film stars Creator/TarajiPHenson as Katherine Johnson, the African-American mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. The film also features Creator/OctaviaSpencer, Music/JanelleMonae, Creator/KevinCostner, Creator/KirstenDunst, Creator/JimParsons, Creator/GlenPowell and Creator/MahershalaAli.

* CompositeCharacter: Al Harrison never existed. He's a mishmash of three different NASA directors. Same with Vivian Mitchell: she's intended to be more of a metaphor for white complacency than an actual person.

* ForegoneConclusion: John Glenn's pod has some trouble with the heat shield. If it fails, it will invariably kill him. It's PlayedForDrama in the movie, but most people in the audience will be at least somewhat familiar with Senator John Glenn, the former astronaut.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: A lot of elements of the story were compressed or embroidered to suit the narrative. The bathroom drama, for example, was very exaggerated for the movie: in the book, it was Mary who had trouble finding a bathroom, in an unfamiliar building where she had been sent to work.

The film has been a runaway success, including being the highest-grossing film of 2016 (beating out ''Film/RogueOne'').

* ThisIsGoingToBeHuge: Dorothy realizes early on that the new IBM computer is going to replace human computers - and that electronic computers in general are going to be the wave of the future - and teaches herself and her staff FORTRAN programming. [[spoiler:They're all hired on en masse into the computer group and form the nucleus of the new IT department.]]

* CompositeCharacter: Al Harrison never existed. He's a mishmash of three different NASA directors.

* MovingTheGoalposts: Mary intends to become an engineer, earning dual bachelor's degrees in math and physics, but the requirements are changed partway through her application to require graduate ones as well. Upon hearing thus, she bitterly muses: "Every time we get a chance to get ahead they move the finish line. Every time."

** To a lesser extent, the judge that Mary Jackson petitions to allow her to attend classes at a segregated white school. Despite the dubious looks of the spectators in court and his support of segregation in schools, he hears her out [[spoiler: and allows her to take night courses.]]

* RunningGag: Literally, but used for dramatic effect. Katherine has to run across campus to use the bathroom in a separate building. [[spoiler: By the end of the movie, a white male mathematician runs across the campus to come find her at John Glenn's request, and then she has to sprint back with him.]]
* SecondLove: Katherine is a widower with three daughters. A side-plot of the film is her developing romance and eventual marriage with Jim Johnson.

* StereotypeFlip: After the trio is inspected by a cop but eventually offered an escort to NASA headquarters, Mary takes great pleasure in driving as close to the cop car's rear as possible, because for once they get to be the ones chasing the police.

* GenreSavvy: Dorothy realizes early on that the new IBM computer is going to replace human computers - and that electronic computers in general are going to be the wave of the future - and teaches herself and her staff FORTRAN programming. [[spoiler:They're all hired on en masse into the computer group and form the nucleus of the new IT department.]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Stafford. He's not going to let a little thing like the entire JimCrow structure of the South get in the way of ''beating the Russians,'' and he's very loyal to his group, including Katherine.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Stafford.

* EasilyForgiven: Katherine is suspected of being a Soviet spy because she knows the plans for the Atlas rocket. It's revealed that the pens that the men are using to redact documents aren't dark enough to blot out the information. Either could be grounds for termination (either of Katherine, who knows information higher than her security clearance, or of Stafford, who hasn't been redacting his work properly), but Harrison is understanding and just says that they should get darker ink.

* GenreSavvy: Dorothy realizes early on that the new IBM computer is going to replace human computers - and that electronic computers in general are going to be the wave of the future - and teaches herself and her staff programming.* ForegoneConclusion: John Glenn's pod has some trouble with the heat shield. If it fails, it will invariably kill him. It's PlayedForDrama in the movie, but most people in the audience will be at least somewhat familiar with Senator John Glenn, the former astronaut.

!! ''Hidden Figures'' contains examples of:

* ForegoneConclusion: John Glenn's pod has some trouble with the heat shield. If it fails, it will invariably kill him. It's PlayedForDrama in the movie, but most people in the audience will be at least somewhat familiar with Senator John Glenn, the former astronaut.

* ThisIsGoingToBeHuge: Dorothy realizes early on that the new IBM computer is going to replace human computers - and that electronic computers in general are going to be the wave of the future - and teaches herself and her staff programming.

* EasilyImpressed: An initially hostile police offer ends up giving the three women a police escort to work after they imply that they know astronauts.

* PottyEmergency: Katherine, constantly, because she has to run across Langley campus and back to use a segregated women's bathroom.
* PowerWalk: Dorothy leading her Black computers across campus to the IBM lab, backed by triumphant music.

* RunningGag: Literally, but used for dramatic effect. Katherine has to run across campus to use the bathroom in a separate building. [[spoiler: By the end of the movie, another mathematician runs across the campus to come find her at John Glenn's request.]]