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The Movie Room · a Living Undefeated resource
What is Hidden Figures actually about?
Three women doing the arithmetic that put Americans into orbit, while the building they work in is still arguing about which bathroom they may use. Nobody's death drives it — which, on a list like this one, is almost unheard of.
What it is
A 2016 biographical drama directed by Theodore Melfi, adapted from Margot Lee Shetterly's book. Taraji P. Henson plays the mathematician Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monáe plays Mary Jackson, three Black women working at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia in the early 1960s. One hundred and twenty-seven minutes. Three Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer.
Who this is wrong for, and when
There is no bereavement in it and no hospital. What there is, steadily, is segregation — separate bathrooms, a separate coffee pot, a half-mile walk across a campus in the rain to use a facility a white colleague reaches in thirty seconds — and the cumulative weight of that is the point rather than a background detail.
Katherine Johnson is a widow raising three daughters when the film opens, and her first husband's death is referred to rather than shown. It is handled lightly, and a viewer whose own loss is recent may still catch on it.
The film also compresses and rearranges real events for shape — the bathroom march, in particular, is a construction. It is a good film and not a documentary, and we would rather say that than let it stand as history.
Why it is on this list
Because of a structural thing that is hard to find. Nearly every uplifting film works by taking something away from somebody and then giving some of it back. This one builds its lift out of competence instead — the thing that goes right goes right because three people were extremely good at their jobs and kept turning up.
That makes it one of the few films on the hundred you can put on for a mixed room, including a teenager, with no warning attached and no scene you have to talk someone through afterwards.
If this one is not right for you
Apollo 13 — the same era and the same competence, from inside the capsule.
Rocky — persistence, with the outcome decided against you.
CODA — a family story, pitched to a similar age.
Where to watch it
Start with your library. hoopla frequently carries it and it is free with a library card. It otherwise rotates through the major subscription services; check before you rent.
We make nothing from any of these links. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site and there never will be.
Back to the room
The Movie Room — one hundred films, sorted by what the evening needs.
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We publish the test we use on ourselves, including the parts we do not pass yet. Read it here.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, any time, anywhere in the United States.
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741.
These are never behind a form on this site and never will be.
Before you give to anyone
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We wrote down the checklist we use. Before we send a dollar anywhere, we run the organization through CharityWatch, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator and Candid. It is one page, and it works on any charity — including this one.
Read the checklist — freeOn the site, right now. Nothing to fill in and no email needed.
Start here — free, no sign-up
Guide one · 7 pages
A Reason to Get Up
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, and what that book can and cannot do for you after somebody dies. Who Frankl actually was, what he actually argued, and the famous quote that is not his.
Download the guide — freePDF, 7 pages. Nothing to fill in, no email, no ask attached to it.
Three more, if you want them
These are the books we read and the things we did after we lost Austin. Not advice and not therapy — an honest account of what helped us, and what the research actually says about each of it. Every statistic in them carries a source and a year.
Guide two · 9 pages
The Circling
The Power of Now, and what is actually happening when you cannot stop going over it. Includes the part no grief guide prints: meditation is not risk-free, and who should be careful.
Guide three · 11 pages
Give It Away
Why doing something for somebody else, expecting nothing back, appears to do something for you. With a verified list of places that will take you this week, and the ones that will ask you to wait a year.
Guide four · 16 pages
The First Year
The practical one. What actually has to be done, what the months afterward really look like, and fifty things that might help — each one labeled for whether there is evidence behind it.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the US. You do not have to be in immediate danger to use it.
Crisis Text Line. Text HOME to 741741.
Veterans Crisis Line. Dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255.
If there is an immediate danger to life, call 911.
