A24's documentary about Elizabeth Holmes drew the best opening-weekend crowd for a non-concert nonfiction film in more than two decades this weekend, a surprise jolt in a box office otherwise dominated by a video-game reboot and a pair of divisive literary adaptations.
"You Can See Everything," directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, took in $5.54 million on Friday from 855 theaters, trailing only the wide-release "Street Fighter" for the day. Studio estimates put its three-day domestic total between $12 million and $14 million, according to Deadline's weekend box office report. If the figure holds once Monday's actuals are tallied, it would be the strongest launch for a documentary without concert footage since Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" opened to $23.9 million in 2004, and well clear of the previous record-holder in that category, 2012's "Chimpanzee," which debuted to $10.7 million.
The number is especially striking set against the film's footprint. A24 released "You Can See Everything" into fewer than 900 theaters, a fraction of the 3,500-plus screens carrying "Street Fighter." The per-theater average, north of $6,000 on Friday alone, points to the kind of specialty-release heat that rarely translates into a true opening-weekend record. Produced on a reported $7 million budget with a break-even point near $17.5 million, the film is already close to profitable a single weekend in.
Thirty-Four Days Before Prison
The documentary follows Holmes, the Theranos founder convicted of fraud for defrauding investors over a blood-testing technology that never worked as claimed, during the weeks before she reported to federal prison to serve a sentence of more than 11 years. Fielder and Oppenheim were granted access to Holmes, her partner Billy Evans, and their children in the run-up to her surrender date, mixing fly-on-the-wall footage with staged recreations in a style close to Fielder's television work on "Nathan for You" and "The Rehearsal." Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in Hulu's "The Dropout," also appears, helping narrate and interpret the footage.
Holmes, who has maintained her innocence since her 2022 conviction, reportedly gave the filmmakers access in hopes the project would help clear her name. Fielder has suggested the final cut does the opposite. Discussing his own shifting read on his subject at a post-screening Q&A, he said that when he first met Holmes, she "seemed so genuine at times" that he had to consciously remind himself of the facts of her case.
But then I'm like, "no," and clocking and tracking my thoughts and being like, "OK, I know she's a liar." It was a weird mental thing.
Nathan Fielder, at a post-screening Q&A
Fielder has also said tension developed behind the scenes with Evans. "Near the end of the process, Billy was trying to exert, we felt, a lot of control over the process," the director said, describing friction that surfaced as the subjects got a closer look at what the finished film would show.
A Three-Hour Film Critics Can't Stop Describing
Reviews have run from enthusiastic to bewildered, with almost none landing in the middle. WBUR's critic called it a wild, mind-melting movie that audiences will be talking about for the rest of the year, while the Associated Press's review described it as wildly entertaining and confounding, noting it moves quickly despite a runtime of nearly three hours. Other critics have been more guarded, praising its craft while questioning what, exactly, the film believes about its subject by the time the credits roll. Several reviewers have deliberately avoided describing the film's final stretch, which follows Holmes after she enters prison, to preserve it for audiences.
The reception mirrors the film's own structure: it offers access without resolution, letting Holmes talk at length without ever fully vouching for what she says. That ambiguity, divisive on social media since the film's secretive Telluride premiere in September, appears to be part of what is pulling people into theaters rather than waiting for a streaming release.
A24 has not announced specifics for the film's awards campaign, but a box office run of this size, in a year thin on breakout documentaries, makes it an early contender in the category. Distribution plans beyond North America, including a November release in Australia and New Zealand, suggest the studio is treating the film as a long-haul title rather than a one-weekend event. Whether the audience built this weekend sustains itself, or whether "You Can See Everything" settles into the steep drop typical of based-on-a-true-story specialty releases, should become clear as its theater count expands in the coming weeks.
