A24's Elizabeth Holmes doc hits $80M, becomes second-biggest non-music documentary in North America

A documentary nearly three hours long, made for $7 million, kept secret until a surprise festival premiere — and now closing in on $100 million at the North American box office. A24's 'You Can See Everything' reached $80 million after its fourth weekend of release, becoming the second-highest-grossing non-music documentary in North American history, according to Variety and Box Office Mojo.

The film showed unusually strong legs for any release, let alone a documentary. Only Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' which grossed $119 million in 2004, sits ahead of it on the all-time non-music doc chart. 'March of the Penguins,' long the benchmark at $77 million, has been surpassed.

Directed by Nathan Fielder — in his feature directorial debut — and Lance Oppenheim, the film follows Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted Theranos founder, and her partner Billy Evans in the weeks before Holmes began serving an 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors. Holmes and Evans invited the filmmakers to document their lives at a rented beach house in Del Mar, California, giving them extensive personal access — though, according to the film, Fielder grew suspicious they were withholding information.

The documentary's opening weekend told the story early. It debuted to an estimated $15 million from just 855 locations — a per-theater average of $17,543 — the highest opening weekend for any documentary since at least 2013, according to The Wrap. That opening topped the $7.1 million debut of Amazon MGM's 'Melania,' which opened from more than double the screen count. More than 2,000 screenings sold out as of that first Sunday morning, according to A24.

Critical reception has been nearly unanimous. The film holds a 99% critics score and 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to The Wrap. On PostTrak, 92% of audiences surveyed gave it the highest rating of 'definite recommend' — a figure The Wrap notes is territory usually reserved for faith-based films, and well above the 81% earned by 'The Odyssey' this year. There is Oscar buzz as well: The Wrap reports the film may become the first documentary ever nominated for Best Picture.

The film's combined production and marketing costs came in at less than $10 million, according to The Wrap — against a production budget alone of $7 million, per Wikipedia. A24 has now turned a tightly controlled secret into its third-biggest U.S. release to date, according to Variety.

The project originated in 2023 when Oppenheim, already a fan of Fielder's work, remembered a rumor about Holmes asking A24 to document her life — the memory triggered at a magic show at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where someone called out Holmes's name in response to a magician's request for a celebrity name, according to Wikipedia. The two directors had previously considered a documentary about Toastmasters International but abandoned it after failing to find an angle.

The film's content is as layered as its box office run. Fielder uses actress Amanda Seyfried — who played Holmes in the Hulu miniseries 'The Dropout' — to reenact scenes that could not be filmed, including a meeting in which Evans, portrayed by Christopher Abbott, requested a cut of the documentary's profits while Holmes was in another room. On-screen text reveals Evans ultimately relinquished that profit-sharing agreement before the film's release. Holmes, meanwhile, told Fielder during a prison visit that Seyfried's portrayal had led to bullying from fellow inmates — a claim Seyfried disputed while defending her performance.

The film's theatrical success stands in sharp contrast to the wider documentary market. The Wrap described 'You Can See Everything' as breaking through 'the industry-wide malaise that has plagued documentaries for the past five years.' A competing documentary this weekend — Alex Gibney's four-hour film 'Musk,' distributed by Bleecker Street — grossed just $306,702 from 472 screens, a per-theater average of $650, hampered in part by advertising restrictions on platforms owned or associated with its subject.

With its international rollout still in a staggered start as of late November, the domestic total alone is expected to push past $100 million — a milestone that would be, for a documentary of this length and subject matter, without modern precedent.

Why it matters — A nearly three-hour documentary made for $7 million is on course to cross $100 million domestically, demonstrating that audience appetite for documentary filmmaking — when the subject and execution align — can rival mainstream theatrical releases.

Sources differ on Holmes's alleged remark about 'The Dropout': NYT reporter Amy Chozick stands by the quote: 'They're not playing me. They're playing a character I created.' (en.wikipedia.org) vs Holmes and Evans disputed that she made this remark (en.wikipedia.org)

Reported by variety.com, boxofficemojo.com, en.wikipedia.org, thewrap.com, indiewire.com