LOS ANGELES
The most secretive movie of the year is a secret no longer. You Can See Everything, the A24 documentary directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, opened in United States theaters on Friday, October 16. The Times reported that the film centers on Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing company Theranos, and draws on unprecedented access to Holmes and her family in the month before she reported to prison in 2023. It is an unlikely pairing on paper — a deadpan comedian who builds elaborate fictions for a living, and a founder convicted of deceiving the investors who bankrolled hers — and, according to the first wave of reviews, that tension is exactly what makes the film work.
Holmes's underlying story is well established. The Times noted that Theranos was once valued at $9 billion on the promise that its technology could run extensive tests from a tiny amount of blood. In 2022, Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors, and she was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Radio Times, in its coverage of the film's trailer, reported that she reported to federal prison in May 2023 to begin serving that sentence in Texas. What has not been seen before is the domestic countdown to that moment: the family life, the legal maneuvering and the farewells, filmed from inside the home Holmes shared with her partner, Billy Evans, and their children.
Holmes and Evans asked for the film, Fielder told the NYFF audience
One of the production's most surprising details emerged after the lights came up at the New York Film Festival. The Times reported that, at a post-screening question-and-answer session at the festival, Fielder explained that Holmes and Evans approached the production company A24 about making a documentary. Fielder said he was asked to be part of the project and was curious enough to say yes. Why the couple chose him, of all filmmakers, remains an open question — and, by most critical accounts, it is a question the finished film is in no hurry to answer for the audience.
A24's official synopsis, quoted by Radio Times, sets the starting point plainly: thirty-four days before she is sent to prison, Holmes invites a film crew to document her every move, and what begins as an intimate portrait becomes a three-year journey. The project was made largely in secret over that span. According to the film's festival history, it premiered as a surprise secret screening at the Telluride Film Festival on September 6, where attendees did not know what they were about to watch and surrendered their phones before the screening. It was then added to the New York Film Festival, screening on September 30. For a documentary built around one of the most scrutinized figures in American business, keeping its very existence quiet for three years is a production feat in its own right.
A portrait shot in extreme close-up, with the machinery left in frame
CNN, in its review published on opening day, described a film that is visually gorgeous and yet profoundly unsettling, shot much of the time in extreme close-up and willing to show its own crew and boom microphones as the line between reality and recreation blurs. That method will be familiar to anyone who has followed Fielder's work on Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, and to viewers of Oppenheim's earlier documentaries, including Ren Faire. Here it is turned on a subject who, in the trailer highlighted by Radio Times, maintains her innocence on camera while Fielder questions both Holmes and Evans about truth, memory and responsibility.
The running time is part of the story, too. The film runs 174 minutes — just under three hours — and is rated R, according to FandomWire's release guide. That is a demanding sit for a documentary, and it shapes everything about the film's theatrical prospects, from how many screenings a theater can fit into a day to which audiences will commit to it on opening weekend.
The reviews have been raves — and some critics are already talking about the Oscars
The critical response, so far, has been about as strong as a documentary can receive. The film's listing on Wikipedia, drawing on the review aggregators, records a 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 89 reviews, with an average rating of 9.3, and a Metacritic score of 98 from 31 critics, indicating universal acclaim. Variety critic Owen Gleiberman, in his review, called it a "one-of-a-kind reality-TV-as-hangout-movie psychodrama circus," according to Indy100's roundup of the critical reaction. The Hollywood Reporter's Angie Han was quoted in box office coverage describing the film as smart, funny and full of surprises. The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis also praised the film, writing that few movies speak as uncannily to the confusions of the present moment.
The boldest speculation has gone further than praise. The Times reported that some critics have tipped the film to become the first documentary ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture. That is critics' speculation, not an Academy verdict — no documentary has won that prize, and the awards season is only beginning — but the fact that the prediction is being made at all, by reviewers rather than publicists, tells you how unusual the reception has been. Previously will follow the film's awards trajectory as the season develops; for now, the claim belongs to the critics making it.
What opening weekend looks like at the box office
Commercially, the film is attempting something documentaries rarely try: a real theatrical opening rather than a token platform release. Box Office Theory's weekend forecast put the film's domestic opening range at $8 million to $13 million, from roughly 800 theaters, on a crowded mid-October frame led by Street Fighter — read our review of Street Fighter for the weekend's other big opener. TheWrap, in its box office preview, reported that an opening at that level could make You Can See Everything the biggest opening weekend for a non-music documentary since the COVID pandemic, passing the $7.1 million opening that Melania recorded earlier this year. FandomWire added a demand signal from the specialty circuit: presales at Alamo Drafthouse reportedly set a record for an A24 film.
Whether the forecast holds matters beyond one weekend. A near-three-hour, R-rated documentary about a convicted fraudster is not a conventional commercial proposition, and a strong opening would say something real about how far festival buzz, a beloved filmmaker and sheer curiosity can carry nonfiction in theaters. Audiences outside the United States get their chance soon after: Radio Times reported a United Kingdom and Ireland release date of November 20. For the full picture of what else is competing for your weekend, see our weekend viewing guide, and browse more new releases in our browse section. You Can See Everything is in US theaters now.
