Elizabeth Holmes Documentary You Can See Everything Debuts With Huge $15 Million Opening Weekend | Movies

Nathan Fielder’s nearly three-hour Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything opened with an extraordinary $15 million domestic box office, the biggest opening weekend for a documentary in North America in more than 20 years.

You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, grossed $15 million (A$21.5 million, £11.2 million) from just 855 screens and had more than 2,000 sold-out screenings this weekend, according to production company A24. This is the biggest opening for a film released on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat opened to $26.5 million in 2006.

It is also the biggest premiere for a documentary in North America in two decades, since Fahrenheit 9/11 which grossed nearly $24 million from 868 theaters. These numbers don’t account for inflation or concert films: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour holds the record with a $92.8 million opening weekend in 2023 when released in nearly 4,000 theaters.

You Can See Everything is yet to hit the international box office, releasing in Australia on November 12 and the UK on November 20.

As with other hits this year, including Backrooms and Obsession, ticket sales for You Can See Everything were driven by largely younger audiences in North America; more than 70% of the opening weekend crowd was under 35 years old.

The film, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, was made in secret over three years. Fielder spent more than a month with the disgraced Theranos founder and her family, including her two young children and her partner, Billy Evans, during her final days before reporting to federal prison.

Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, with 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and 99 on Metacritic. He also earned an unprecedented 91 percent “definite recommend” rating from the public, according to PostTrak exit polls.

You Can See Everything reportedly cost less than $7 million to make and less than $10 million to market.

“Everyone underestimated the film, because on paper it’s like, wait, a three-hour documentary?” Paul Dergarabedian, market trends manager for Rentrak, told the Associated Press. “But (Fielder) has a huge appeal, and he has a huge following on social media, and then Elizabeth Holmes is just a character that you can’t even make up. It’s stranger than fiction, and it’s really compelling.”

Elsewhere at the box office, Street Fighter topped the charts as expected with a worldwide opening of $51 million, including $20 million from international showings. The film starring Callina Liang, Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji cost $82 million, not including marketing and promotion. The audience was 69% male.

Street Fighter and You Can See Everything may have contributed to Whalefall’s relative failure this weekend. The $60 million survival thriller starring Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin grossed $8 million from 3,065 locations in the United States and Canada, although it was better reviewed than Street Fighter. With $9.5 million in international showings, the Disney release had a total worldwide launch of $17.5 million.

Whalefall opened in fourth place, behind Jessica Chastain’s horror Other Mommy, which grossed $8.4 million domestically in its second weekend, adding to its worldwide total of $78.7 million.

Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary Musk also played on 472 screens in the United States and Canada, earning $306,702. The film, which is nearly four hours long, has encountered advertising issues on major social media platforms, including X, which Musk owns, and TikTok, according to its distributor, Bleecker Street, which said that over the weekend, TikTok permanently suspended the film’s advertising account.

Netflix also shared for the first time ticket sales for queer Spanish epic La Bola Negra, which grossed $277,500 across four sites this weekend. Historically, the streamer has not recorded box office for its theatrical releases, but this film breaks new ground by positioning itself as one of the best possible film contenders. It will be in theaters for 47 days before being available on Netflix.

According to Rentrak, the weekend overall generated approximately $101.6 million in ticket sales, up 45% from the same weekend last year. The annual cumulative figure amounts to $8.2 billion, an increase of almost 20% compared to 2025.

– Associated Press contributed to this report