You Can See Everything has made it through its first weekend in theaters, and the internet is giddy.
Since Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes opened in the U.S. on Oct. 16, viewers have sent it climbing Letterboxd’s rankings, called it one of the best films they’ve ever seen, and even started making the case for a Best Picture Oscar.
The reactions are enthusiastic, to put it mildly. Even our entertainment editor Kristy Puchko called it, “mesmerizing and mind-bending.”
Between the ratings, the posts, and an estimated $15 million opening weekend, here’s how the film is turning weeks of anticipation into an even bigger conversation.
Letterboxd ratings put it among the platform’s favorites
As of today (Oct. 19), You Can See Everything has reached a 4.71-out-of-five average on Letterboxd, overtaking the 1962 Japanese film Harakiri to become the platform’s highest-rated film.
Reception is similarly strong on Rotten Tomatoes, where the film holds a 98 percent critics’ score from 126 reviews and a matching 98 percent verified audience score as of Oct. 19. And to complete the “ratings trilogy,” its IMDb score reached 9.4 out of 10, making it the highest-scored movie in IMDb history.
But the written reviews give a more colorful picture of what’s driving that response.
Mashable Trend Report
“My mouth was agape for basically the entire last two hours,” wrote one reviewer. Another added, “I genuinely don’t think I have ever had more fun watching a movie.” As one reviewer wrote, “this is one of the most important works of art of the 21st century. I want more people to watch this than I want them to watch anything right now.”
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Over on Threads, the recommendations are just as emphatic. “Holy shit ‘You Can See Everything’ is one of the best films I’ve seen in so long,” one user wrote. “my mind is blown and left speechless,” said another. And on X, one user wrote: “You Can See Everything is kind of like if a movie was the best movie of all time. A complete 3 hour electric factory, I was not bored for a moment. Entirely riveting storytelling.”
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The three-hour runtime has also become part of the conversation. One Threads user described wondering whether they would stay focused for almost three hours, only to find that “the film becomes more riveting with every passing hour.” Another X user praised the theater experience: “We were all locked tf in on it. And it’s 3 frickin hours long.” One Threads user added, “the audience reacting the same way in the same moments made it that much better.”
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Discussion isn’t all praise, of course. On Letterboxd, the 1/2-or-1-star reviewers found it “tedious and evil,” “boring and painfully long,” and a “mumbo jumbo, word salad, waste of time movie.”
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A critical and commercial smash
The attention has also come with substantial ticket sales. You Can See Everything opened to an estimated $15 million from 855 theaters, according to Rotten Tomatoes’ weekend box-office report. Excluding concert films, that makes it the second-biggest domestic documentary opening behind Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004.
With numbers and reviews like that, it makes sense You Can See Everything is getting some Oscar buzz. “It was a masterclass in film and SHOULD win best picture (not documentary),” one threads user wrote. “Not only should this be nominated for Best Picture, it should probably win,” wrote a user on X. Awards site Next Best Picture ranks You Can See Everything No. 10 in its team’s Best Picture predictions, with seven of its 17 contributors predicting a nomination and one predicting a win.
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There’s no rule stopping this from happening, necessarily. There is, however, a considerable historical hurdle: No documentary has ever been nominated for Best Picture. In The Playlist, awards writer Gregory Ellwood argues that enthusiasm alone may not overcome some voters’ attitudes toward the format. “As with animated films, they believe those genres should be recognized in those categories,” he writes.
The Oscar speculation has reached prediction markets, too. As of Oct. 19, Kalshi put You Can See Everything at an implied 18 percent chance of winning Best Picture and 76 percent for Best Documentary Feature.
We’ll have to wait to see whether Academy voters are as impressed as everyone on your feed. In the meantime, there’s already plenty to discuss — and almost three hours of movie to catch up on.
You Can See Everything is now playing in U.S. theaters.
