A24’s “You Can See Everything” has reached $80 million at the North American box office after four weekends, becoming the second-highest-grossing non-music documentary ever released in the region. The film about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes added $8.8 million in its fourth frame from 2,473 theaters, a decline of just 23%.
The documentary is now positioned to pass $100 million domestically, a rare milestone for a nearly three-hour nonfiction film. It sits above 2005’s “March of the Penguins,” which grossed $77 million in North America, and behind Michael Moore’s 2005 film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which grossed $119 million.
“You Can See Everything” has not yet opened internationally. A staggered rollout is scheduled to begin at the end of November, and the film will need to connect with audiences outside North America to challenge the genre’s worldwide records. “Fahrenheit 9/11” remains the biggest documentary in history with $103 million overseas and $222 million globally. “March of the Penguins” follows with $49 million overseas and $127 million worldwide.
Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends, said the film “has really broken the rules of how a documentary can perform at the box office.” He added that it “has defied box office gravity week after week and clearly captured the imagination of audiences.”
After a surprise world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, the documentary became a word-of-mouth sensation, helped by some of the year’s strongest reviews. It opened to $15 million in mid-October and has continued to draw crowds, including viewers returning to theaters to process the stranger-than-fiction story.
Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, “You Can See Everything” unfolds over three years and begins as Holmes, the founder of the health technology company Theranos, prepares to serve an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors.
The turnout is notable given how much film and television has already covered Holmes. Her rise and fall were dramatized in the Hulu series “The Dropout,” starring Amanda Seyfried, and examined in Alex Gibney’s documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.” The secrecy surrounding “You Can See Everything,” which was not widely known until about a month before its theatrical release, heightened anticipation.
The film’s popularity also reflects Fielder’s commercial appeal. Known for cringe comedy, he has built a following by blending reality and fiction in HBO’s “The Rehearsal” and Comedy Central’s “Nathan for You.” Audiences have been drawn to the awkward dynamic between Fielder and Holmes.
The low-budget release has outgrossed several major fall titles, including Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” a frenetic drama starring Robert Pattinson as “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen, with $46 million to date; DC’s comic book adventure “Clayface,” with $56 million; Brad Pitt’s survival thriller “Heart of the Beast,” with $67 million; and the Colleen Hoover adaptation “Verity,” led by Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, with $75 million. Those films were backed by months-long, multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns.
For A24, “You Can See Everything” is now the studio’s third-biggest domestic release. It has surpassed 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which grossed $77 million, and trails only this summer’s “Backrooms,” with $197 million, and 2025’s “Marty Supreme,” with $96 million. Made for $7 million, the documentary is also set to be highly profitable.