‘You Can See Everything’ Becomes One of the Biggest Documentary Releases in Decades

“You Can See Everything” just had the biggest box office opening for a documentary in over 20 years.

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s groundbreaking film about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has generated more than $15 million in ticket sales.

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

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

“You Can See Everything” was released on fewer than 900 screens after 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 leading up to Holmes’ incarceration in 2023. Holmes was convicted of wire fraud and conspiring 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 viewers alike. The film has an extraordinarily high “fresh score” of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and a record 4.8 rating on Letterboxd.

The film “rewrote the rules of documentary as we know them,” CNN’s David Mack wrote in an opening article explaining why it “absolutely lives up to the hype.”

Theater fans clearly wanted to find out for themselves. “You Can See Everything” had the biggest opening for a film on fewer than 1,000 screens since “Borat” in 2006. It is the largest non-music documentary since “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004.

This year’s other big documentary — Amazon MGM’s “Melania” film about the first lady — played on twice as many screens and made less than half the money, $7.1 million, in its opening weekend. And “Melania” was considered a box office success in terms of a documentary when it was released.

“You can see everything” is in a league of its own. Some film critics predicted that it would receive a Best Picture nomination. It opens nationwide next weekend and will definitely benefit from all the buzz from its opening weekend.

Overall, “You Can See Everything” finished #2 at the weekend box office in North America. Paramount’s video game adaptation of “Street Fighter” dominated the box office with an estimated $30 million in ticket sales from 3,575 screens. Paramount is owned by Skydance, which also owns CNN.