When it comes to handicapping this year’s Oscar season there are a couple of contenders that remain enigmas, but none moreso than Steven Spielberg’s The Post. The Oscar-winning filmmaker put the film together incredibly quickly this spring, pushing back his intended next film The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in order to get the timely The Post in theaters as quickly as possible. There’s been a lot of intrigue surrounding the historical drama, and we now finally have our first look at the incredible cast thanks to a first-look image.

The drama tells the true story behind the release of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, at which point the Nixon White House fought to prevent the Washington Post from publishing these internal memos that revealed Nixon’s administration had lied to the American public about what was really going on in the Vietnam War. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the fight was quite literally surrounding the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.

Liz Hannah wrote the original screenplay, with Oscar-winning Spotlight scribe Josh Singer subsequently coming onboard to do some extra work on the script. And the cast here is downright incredible. Tom Hanks plays famous Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, while Meryl Streep plays the paper’s first female publisher Kay Graham. Then Spielberg went all Lincoln with it and cast amazing actors in nearly every role. The ensemble includes Carrie Coon, Sarah Paulson, Jesse Plemons, Alison Brie, Bradley Whitford, Bob Odenkirk, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Zach Woods, Bruce Greenwood, and Tracy Letts.

So yeah, you could say we’re a little excited about this one. The first image comes courtesy of 20th Century Fox and offers a taste of this incredible ensemble. Here’s hoping this means a trailer is on its way soon. The Post opens in theaters on December 22nd.

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Image via 20th Century Fox
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Image via Disney
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Image via Disney