Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes documentary earns rare 95 Metacritic score

A documentary crew showed up at Elizabeth Holmes's door 34 days before she was due to report to prison. What they captured over the next three years has critics reaching for superlatives: 'You Can See Everything,' directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, carries a Metacritic score of 95 — placing it among the highest-rated documentaries ever assessed on the platform.

The film runs 174 minutes. Seven critics have reviewed it so far, all positively, with zero mixed or negative assessments, according to Metacritic. The score puts it level with documentaries including 'Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse,' 'I Am Not Your Negro,' and 'Collective.'

The premise is straightforward enough: Holmes, the notorious Silicon Valley founder, invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move in the weeks before her incarceration. But critics say the film quickly becomes something harder to categorize — part portrait, part formal experiment in what documentary filmmaking can and cannot claim to know about its subject.

What begins as a fascinatingly intimate portrait of a deluded or disingenuous scammer reveals as something even wilder, more ambitious and less predictable… YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING reaches for accuracy in its portrayal of a much talked-about figure. It ends up asking, with plenty of humor but no small amount of wisdom, what 'accuracy' would even look like in the first place.— Angie Han

It's a one-of-a-kind reality-TV-as-hangout-movie psychodrama circus. Yet it's been made with a spirit of true inquiry, driven by Fielder's acidly quizzical personality, and it gets its hooks in you.— Owen Gleiberman

A triumphant, riveting, and continually shape-shifting piece of creative non-fiction with curiosity and a playful sense of uncomfortable humor… the kind of documentary that is persistently inquisitive and skeptical: both about its alarmingly wide-eyed subject who often refuses to blink, and the process of documentary filmmaking itself.— Tomris Laffly

Almost immediately, it's evident that You Can See Everything pushes the boundaries of documentary filmmaking, and somehow, even after 174 minutes, it leaves us hungry and curious for more.— Cortlyn Kelly

A recurring theme across reviews is the film's self-awareness about its own limitations. Rather than delivering a definitive new account of Holmes, critics say Fielder and Oppenheim use her as a lens for examining how truth gets constructed — and distorted — in documentary form. Next Best Picture writes that the film "succeeds not simply because it uncovers new things about Elizabeth Holmes (without ever arriving at some definitive new truth) but, more importantly, because it understands how elusive such truth can be."

Fielder, known for projects that push ethical and formal boundaries, appears in the film himself — listed in the cast as 'Self,' alongside Holmes, also listed as 'Self,' according to Metacritic. The film debuted at fall festivals including TIFF, Venice, and Telluride, where it was among the standouts noted by critics, according to Metacritic's festival roundup.

Nashville's Belcourt Theatre is screening the film as part of its 'Doctober' programming, with introductions from a range of local figures including an attorney, a film critic, a musician, and a horror host. Wednesday screenings at the Belcourt are open captioned when available.

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING is one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries ever made. Don't you dare let yourself be spoiled before experiencing this one for yourself.— Joey Magidson

Why it matters — A documentary about one of America's most scrutinized white-collar criminals is drawing rare unanimous critical acclaim not just for what it reveals about Holmes, but for how it interrogates whether documentary film can capture truth at all.

Reported by belcourt.org, regmovies.com, metacritic.com