One of the autumn’s most emotional true stories reached the screen on Thursday night (October 22), as Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl held its world premiere as a red carpet gala at the TCL Chinese Theatre, part of the 40th edition of AFI Fest.

Based on Buzz Bissinger’s New York Times bestseller, the film tells the true story of four of America’s top college football stars who set their fame aside to enlist in the Marines after Pearl Harbor. Training for the brutal invasion of Okinawa, they play one legendary football game — the Mosquito Bowl — a game that, for many of them, would be the last they ever played. Nicholas Galitzine stars as John McLaughry, with Bill Skarsgård as Bob Bauman, Ray Nicholson as Tony Butkovich and Tom Francis as David Schreiner; Pat McAfee appears as a drill instructor.

Berg directed and co-wrote the film with Mark L. Smith, producing alongside Brian Grazer and Alex Gayner. It reunites Berg with Bissinger — his cousin — whose earlier book became Berg’s Friday Night Lights. “I’ve spent much of my career telling stories about people who put themselves in harm’s way, and The Mosquito Bowl is one of the most personal explorations of that for me,” Berg said. “These young men were athletes and friends who became soldiers and were asked to carry an unimaginable burden.”

The crafts team includes nine-time Oscar-nominated sound designer Wylie Stateman, Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor Ariel Velasco Shaw and composers Explosions in the Sky. Netflix will release the film in theaters on October 30, before it arrives on the streaming service on November 25, with an awards push expected.