Distributed by A24, the three-hour documentary You Can See Everything opened to $15 million from 855 theaters. Filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim follow Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the days before her imprisonment, sparking a major box office event and discussion over potential Academy Award nominations.
The three-hour nonfiction experiment opened to an estimated $15 million from 855 theaters, finishing second behind Street Fighter at the domestic box office. The film roughly doubled expectations, as tracking going into the weekend predicted a $7 million to $8 million debut, according to Variety.
Documentary Aims to Break 98-Year Oscar Streak
No documentary has ever secured a nomination for Best Picture across ninety-eight Academy Awards ceremonies. A24 confirmed via its 2026 awards website that it will campaign the film in nine categories beyond Best Documentary Feature, including Best Picture.
‘You Can See Everything’ Sets Oscar Campaigns for Best Picture, Supporting Actress and More Categories https://t.co/NhagZzVX79
Academy screenings drew strong attendance and enthusiastic applause for Oppenheim and Fielder, Deadline reported.
Kalshi traders currently give the film a 16% chance of winning Best Picture, according to data published by Kalshi. Prediction markets place The Odyssey at 47% and The Black Ball at 19%.
Academy Branch Blocks Documentary Progress
Securing a Best Picture nomination requires managing the unique dynamics of the Academy’s documentary branch. Vulture writer Nate Jones explained the structural hurdles in reporting cited by Kalshi:
To get there, YCSE would first have to be nominated by the roughly 700 members of the Academy’s documentary branch. That’s a taller order than it sounds, because the doc brand is not like other branches. No other branch takes such delight in going its own way, regularly giving a cold shoulder to titles the rest of the industry adores. No other branch’s members prioritize their role as combatants in an ideological battle – in this case, over what a documentary should be.
Nate Jones, Vulture
Past contenders like Hoop Dreams faced severe disconnects with Academy recognition. In 1994, Hoop Dreams missed out on both Best Picture and Best Documentary Feature nominations, earning a single nod only for Best Film Editing, despite appearing on nearly 100 critics’ top 10 lists.
You Can See Everything Targets Multiple Award Categories
Industry analysts suggest the production could compete across multiple technical and creative fields beyond the top category.
In addition to Best Picture – which oddly may be an even more realistic goal than Documentary Feature, which has drifted more international in scope recently – You Can See Everything deserves strong consideration for Best Directing, David Bolen’s exceptional cinematography, Ari Balouzian’s haunting music and Adam Locke-Norton’s editing, the latter particularly impressive since he had 700 (!) hours of footage to shape into a 2-hour and 54-minute movie.
Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood
Over 70% of audiences were under 35 years old during the opening weekend, according to the Associated Press. PostTrak recorded a 91% definite recommend score, while Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic both registered critical ratings of 99%.
Letterboxd users pushed the film’s score to 4.8 out of 5, marking the highest rating ever recorded on the platform.
Critics Question Artistic Intent
TIME critic Stephanie Zacharek argued that the feature feels more like a product they’ve brought to market than an example of the documentarian’s art
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Fielder expressed lingering disorientation regarding the production during an A24 Q&A session, reported TheWrap:
“You Can See Everything” has a shot at winning Best Picture at the #Oscars, writes Variety’s film critic Owen Gleiberman:“Like ‘Pulp Fiction,’ this movie seems to be doing nothing less than reinventing what a movie can be. On Oscar night, ‘You Can See Everything’ may emerge as… pic.twitter.com/71pFlPCW6m
I still am not sure to this day what I experienced.
Nathan Fielder, Filmmaker
The movie leaves you with many questions – about Holmes, about the slippery nature of truth and about the objectivity of documentary filmmaking itself.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times