The first six minutes of Shawn Levy’s All the Light We Cannot See will immediately draw you into the stunning four-part limited series. 

Based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, the epic story begins in 1944. As bombs drop on Nazi-occupied Saint-Malo, France, blind French teenager Marie-Laure LeBlanc (Aria Mia Loberti) is sheltering in an attic. “Papa? Uncle Etienne? If you can hear me, please come home,” she says into a radio microphone. Marie-Laure is all alone in the dark, with the only light coming from a few candles and the exploding artillery shells outside. Her uncle Etienne (Hugh Laurie) has been gone for a few days, while her father (Mark Ruffalo) hasn’t returned in over a year. With only a radio, she uses her broadcasts to send messages to her loved ones during the air raid.

Meanwhile, a young Nazi soldier named Werner Pfennig (Louis Hofmann) is listening to Marie-Laure through the frequency waves. He’s been tuning in to this same French radio station ever since he was a child, but now it’s punishable by death to listen to foreign broadcasts. All the Light We Cannot See, which premieres Nov. 2, follows Marie-Laure and Werner’s journeys as they connect through the illegal radio broadcasts during the darkest days of World War II. 

“What I remember most is devouring the book, [and] being so captivated by its cross-cutting structure and themes of innocence in the face of darkness, hope in the face of evil,” Levy told Tudum earlier this year. “I need to make this book. I need it. I need to make it. It’s my dream.” As for the book’s author, Doerr, he was “in awe” the first time he watched the series, telling Levy, “It’s beautiful and I can’t wait for everybody to see it. You’re immediately able to bring [viewers into] the entire four-hour narrative.”

For newcomer Loberti, the series is about more than just being blind. “It’s about humanity coming together in a time of hardship,” she told Netflix during production. “Blindness is the last thing on Marie-Laure’s mind and it’s probably the least relevant part of her identity, but it is the way she explores and feels the world around her.”

Prepare to be swept up by All the Light We Cannot See, when it premieres on Netflix Nov. 2. Watch the first six minutes above now.

Shawn Levy and Anthony Doerr Discuss the All the Light We Cannot See Series