'You Can See Everything' becomes one of the biggest documentaries in decades

Hype around the documentary about the disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is huge. It opens in New Zealand 12 November.

You Can See Everything just saw the biggest box office opening in the US for a documentary in more than 20 years.

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s genre-bending film about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes made more than US$15 million (NZ$26.7 million) in ticket sales.

Many weekend screenings in cities like New York and Los Angeles were sold out despite the three-hour running time.

The film’s distributor, A24, called it “one of the largest limited-release openings of the 21st century”.

You Can See Everything opened on fewer than 900 screens following a jaw-dropping surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last month.

Fielder and Oppenheim worked on the project in secret for years, filming with Holmes and her partner Billy Evans in the weeks before Holmes went to prison in 2023. Holmes was convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud Theranos investors, but she tried to convince the filmmakers of her innocence.

Fielder, who appears on camera interviewing Holmes and Evans, takes the film in unexpected directions, thrilling critics and theatregoers. The film has an extraordinarily high 99 percent “fresh score” on Rotten Tomatoes and a record-high 4.8 rating on Letterboxd.

The film “has rewritten the rules of documentaries as we know them”, CNN’s David Mack wrote in an opening-day article about why it “absolutely lives up to the hype”.

Theatergoers clearly wanted to find out for themselves. You Can See Everything enjoyed the biggest opening for a film on fewer than 1000 screens since Borat in 2006. It was the biggest non-music documentary since Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.

The other big documentary this year — Amazon MGM’s Melania film about the first lady — premiered on twice as many screens and made less than half as much money, $7.1 million (about NZ$8.7 million), in its opening weekend. And Melania was considered a box-office success in documentary terms when it was released.

You Can See Everything is in a category of its own. Some film critics have predicted it will receive a Best Picture nomination. It opens nationwide next weekend, sure to benefit from all the buzz from its opening weekend.

Overall, You Can See Everything finished No. 2 at the weekend box office in North America. Paramount’s video game adaptation of Street Fighter topped the box office with an estimated US$30 million (NZ$36.9 million) in ticket sales from 3,575 screens. Paramount is owned by Skydance, which also owns CNN.

You Can See Everything will open in New Zealand cinemas on 12 November.

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