A Nathan Fielder Documentary About Elizabeth Holmes Is Beating Big Studio Films at the Box Office

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The surprise of the October 23 to 25 weekend was not the film that came first, it was the one that came second. A24's You Can See Everything, a documentary from Nathan Fielder about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing company Theranos, earned about $19.5 million and held second place against Clayface.

Photo: Northwest, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On Sunday it was actually the top film for the day, according to the daily chart. Documentaries rarely do this. The last few that I remember doing well at the multiplex were concert films and nature specials, not a film about a convicted founder and a business scandal. The result says there is a real audience for true stories told with a distinct voice.

Photo: Ja muzalevskaya, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fielder's brand of comedy has always played with awkwardness and the gap between what people say and what they do, which seems like a good match for a story about a company that sold a product it could not deliver. I have not seen the film as I write this, so I will not describe it beyond what the reports say.

Photo: Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A24 has been smart about picking films that start conversations. Its releases are often small, then grow over a few weekends as people recommend them. A second-weekend number like this suggests that is happening again, and the studio added screens during its run.

Have you seen it, and did you go for the subject or for Fielder? And what other documentary deserves a proper cinema release?