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A24's Elizabeth Holmes documentary just had one of the biggest documentary openings in box office history

'You Can See Everything' made $15 million in 855 theaters, nearly doubling projections and setting off a genuine Oscar conversation, all for a film almost no one knew existed six weeks ago.

A24's Elizabeth Holmes documentary just had one of the biggest documentary openings in box office history

Six weeks ago, almost no one on earth knew this movie existed. This weekend, it earned $15 million.

You Can See Everything, the nearly three-hour A24 documentary from directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, opened to a staggering $15 million from 855 screens this past weekend, making it the second-biggest opening ever for a documentary, behind only Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which debuted to $23.9 million on 868 screens in 2004.

The film follows Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Not the mythology, not the podcast theories, Holmes herself. The documentary features an intimate look at the Theranos founder in the days before she reported to a federal prison for her more than 11-year sentence after being found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy.

That access is the whole ballgame here. Thanks to the unparalleled access to Holmes and her family in the days before her incarceration, as well as some truly jaw-dropping creative decisions later in the movie, the film is gripping and shocking, according to CNN.

How A24 pulled off a total blindside

Less than two months ago, the public didn't even know that a Nathan Fielder co-directed and starring documentary following controversial Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes even existed. The playbook A24 ran was almost absurdly minimal. The A24 film was a confidential project never publicly announced until it made its world premiere as a 'secret screening' at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Sept. 6. Its meme-worthy teaser trailer dropped the next day and went viral, creating a word-of-mouth sensation that translated to big ticket sales.

According to Deadline, A24 cracked the code on Gen Z again, with 2,000-plus sellouts and lines around the block for the three-hour film. The audience breakdown was striking: 70% of the opening weekend crowd was under 35, and 44% watched the film with a partner, spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend.

The per-theater performance puts the theatrical wide-release competition to shame. Street Fighter, which topped the overall chart with $31 million, opened across 3,575 theaters and averaged just $8,671 per location, less than half of what You Can See Everything pulled in per theater. Per Fortune, A24 released the film in just 855 theaters across the U.S. and Canada, earning an average of about $17,544 per theater.

On social, the numbers were similarly out of the ordinary. RelishMix data cited by Deadline shows the film had only an Instagram at 13K fans and 42 million views on YouTube off of two videos dropped by A24, with share-reposting stats running at 61:1, which Deadline called exceptional.

The reviews are basically unanimous

That opening number almost doubled what Variety had projected going into the weekend. It stunned with the $15 million opening, almost double its projected $7 million to $8 million opening. Critics were already ahead of the audience. On Metacritic, the film holds a 99 score based on 37 critic reviews, with 100% positive.

Peter Travers at The Travers Take called it "a three-hour nonfiction knockout from Nathan Fielder that follows fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to jail and makes a case for being the first doc in 100 years to get into the Oscar race for best picture." Rolling Stone was equally direct, writing that "you will likely have no idea what you have just seen, besides that it's simply, unabashedly, unashamedly brilliant."

On Rotten Tomatoes, the critics consensus describes the film as "an inscrutable Rorschach Test of Elizabeth Holmes' psyche that's as absorbing as it is haunting." The documentary holds a 98% critics rating and 98% audience score on the site.

Deadline's own analysis of the film's style gets at why it's generating this kind of attention: the documentary is dressed up as a noir, with a thrilling score, grey overcast tones, and a third act that's described as "bananas fun." CNN put it differently, writing that co-directed by Fielder and Oppenheim, the film is "somehow visually gorgeous and yet profoundly ugly, almost intentionally so."

The Oscar question is not hypothetical

Deadline has already published a full piece on the film's Academy Award possibilities, and the headline is not cautious. The trade notes it is "never too early to start talking Oscar, even for a film that might break the mold for a documentary in several categories, and uniquely a possible acting nomination."

That last part is unusual. Fielder himself is the film's on-screen presence, and several critics have pointed to his performance as central to what the film accomplishes. Fielder, whose works include HBO's The Rehearsal and Comedy Central's Nathan For You, often blurs the line between reality and fiction, here putting himself in the center of the story in order to see a side of Holmes like never before.

Some critics have suggested it might find a path to the Best Picture race, not just Best Documentary Feature. Some of the critics who had been privy to its secrets boldly declared it "the movie of the year" or wondered whether it might even become the first documentary to receive an Oscar nomination for best picture, according to CNN.

The plan for A24 was to keep this nice, tight, and limited to get into the cultural ether before ripping the band-aid off wider next weekend, Deadline reported. Expect more screens, more lines, and a lot more think-pieces about Elizabeth Holmes's unblinking stare.

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