Elizabeth Holmes documentary sells out 2,000 North American screenings opening weekend

A secret screening and a long film

You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, runs nearly three hours and records Elizabeth Holmes during the 34 days before she reported to the federal prison in Bryan, Texas. The film was first shown as a secret surprise screening at the Telluride film festival about forty days before its US release. Attendees had to seal their phones in pouches, and guards with night-vision equipment watched the hall. A teaser and then a trailer followed, and the interest only grew from there.

Fielder, a Canadian-born satirist known for Nathan for You, had not planned to appear on screen. Holmes and her partner wanted a sympathetic record of her final weeks with their family before she went to prison, but she drew Fielder into the project, and the two spar for much of the running time.

Holmes's rise and fall

Holmes left Stanford University at 19 in 2003 to found Theranos, a health startup that promised a full set of blood tests from a few drops. Her small device, called Edison, was meant to run around 200 tests, from cholesterol levels to cancer screening. The company was valued at $9 billion. In 2015 John Carreyrou published an investigation in The Wall Street Journal, and later verification found that Theranos results were only 12% accurate. A year later the FBI charged Holmes with defrauding investors, doctors and patients. In January 2022 she was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Release dates and reception

The film opened in US cinemas on Friday, 23 October 2026. More than 2,000 screenings sold out in North America over the opening weekend, and many theatres stayed fully booked in the days that followed. American media reports suggest it could become the first documentary nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Early reviews have been largely positive.

The rollout continues abroad in stages. The film reaches cinemas in Germany and Switzerland on 3 December, and the Spanish distributor Avalon will bring it to Spanish cinemas on 12 February 2027. Australian viewers have to wait about a month after the North American launch, which the Guardian ties to studios' wish to maximise opening-weekend box office.

1. Oct 23, 2026Film opens in US cinemas
2. Dec 3, 2026Film released in Germany and Switzerland
3. Feb 12, 2027Film released in Spain through Avalon

How the film frames Holmes

In one scene, Holmes tells Fielder that she has never lied in her life and that the affair was a misunderstanding. She insists on her innocence on camera.

“I know I didn't commit any crime.”

Critics describe the film as a Rorschach test in which no two viewers see the same thing, and as a film noir thriller built around a manipulative central figure. Margaret O'Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and the author of a book on Silicon Valley, argues that the story is too strange to have been invented. Its appeal, in her view, lies in the fact that it really happened.