The Six Triple Eight tells the incredible true story of WW2’s first and only unit of women of colour

Kerry added that she felt the real-life members of the 6888 as a presence while they filmed. “I felt like these women were with us in this process,” she added. “You felt their spirit all the time.”

Is The Six Triple Eight based on a true story?

It is indeed – the film was primarily inspired by Tyler Perry’s real-life relationship with a member of the battalion named Lena Derriecott King. She died at the age of 100 earlier this year. After speaking to her about her time with the 6888, he was inspired to make a movie about it.

“We sat in her house for a couple of hours just talking, having a great conversation,” Perry said in a tribute video to King. “And when I left there I had a whole movie in my mind that I wanted to write for her.”

The female battalion consisted of 855 women who were deployed from the US to Europe in February 1945.

Netflix

The Six Triple Eight cast

Alongside Oprah Winfrey (!) and Kerry Washington, Sam Waterston and Susan Sarandon, as well as Breaking Bad‘s Dean Norris, the wider cast includes Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson, Kylie Jefferson, Shanice Shantay, Sarah Jeffery, Pepi Sonuga, Moriah Brown, Jeanté Godlock, Jay Reeves, Jeffery Johnson, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Donna Biscoe, Gregg Sulkin and Scott Daniel Johnson.

According to IMDB, Waterston and Sarandon will play President and Eleanor Roosevelt respectively, while Winfrey will be playing Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, a civil rights activist who is known to history as the “First Lady of Negro America”.

Netflix

The Six Triple Eight release date

It will be released into select UK cinemas on 6 December, before dropping on Netflix on 20 December.

The Six Triple Eight trailer

Watch below. We can’t wait to see the stories of these amazing women brought to the big and small screen.