The key facts

  • 'You Can See Everything' grossed $15 million in its first weekend — the second-best result in documentary history
  • The film is playing in 855 theaters, about 2,000 screenings sold out, 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic
  • Directors are Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim; the film is based on access to Holmes and her family a month before prison

Box Office Success

The documentary 'You Can See Everything' about Elizabeth Holmes became a box office sensation: according to preliminary Sunday estimates, it grossed $15 million in its first weekend. This is the second-best opening for a documentary in history. The nearly three-hour film, first shown at a closed festival screening in Telluride, is playing in only 855 theaters — for comparison, the box office leader 'Street Fighter' is showing in 3,575. Nevertheless, the film drew about 2,000 sold-out screenings, and its ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic stand at 99%.

What the Film Is About

The story of Holmes's rise and fall — the founding of the blood-testing startup Theranos, backing from the biggest names in Silicon Valley, and an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors — has already been told in books, podcasts, miniseries, and other documentaries. The novelty of the film is that its creators gained extensive access to Holmes and her family in the month before she was sent to prison, and the co-director became the creator of 'The Rehearsal,' Nathan Fielder, who worked alongside Lance Oppenheim.

Reaction and Context

TechCrunch correspondent Amanda Silberling watched the film on Thursday and wrote that the enigmatic Holmes finally met a worthy adversary in Fielder — a deadpan comedian as strange and enigmatic as she is. Fielder's month with Holmes, she said, is only the beginning of an increasingly surreal, metatextual journey. Tickets in Manhattan are hard to find: the TechCrunch writer found only one screening with available seats not in the front row.

Impact on Other Tech Films

The discussion around 'You Can See Everything' may make it harder for other technology films to break through. Aaron Sorkin's sequel to 'The Social Network,' 'The Social Reckoning,' grossed a disappointing $5.5 million last weekend and has already dropped out of the top 10. Alex Gibney's four-hour documentary 'Musk' — possibly due to resistance from social platforms and its runtime — grossed only $306,702 this weekend.