Elizabeth Holmes doc smashes records with $15m debut

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, You Can See Everything, has opened to a staggering $15m in its North American debut, the largest opening for a documentary in over 20 years ^[1]. Playing on just 855 screens, the film outperformed even Fahrenheit 9/11’s 2004 debut when adjusted for inflation, and is the biggest non-concert doc opening since Borat in 2006. It achieved over 2,000 sold-out screenings, driven largely by a younger audience, with more than 70% of viewers under 35.

The film, made in secret over three years, includes intimate footage of Holmes with her two children and partner Billy Evans in the final days before her prison sentence ^[1]. Despite a production cost of under $7m and marketing under $10m, it has earned a 99% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 99 Metacritic rating, with PostTrak reporting a 91% audience ‘definite recommend’.

Fielder’s star power and Holmes’s real-life story—described as ‘stranger than fiction’—are credited with the film’s success, according to Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian ^[1]. Meanwhile, Street Fighter opened with $51m globally, while Whalefall, a $60m Disney thriller, earned only $8m domestically, finishing fourth behind Jessica Chastain’s Other Mommy.

Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary, banned from TikTok and X, grossed just $306,702 across 472 screens ^[1]. Netflix also revealed box office data for the Spanish epic La Bola Negra, which earned $277,500 from four locations over the weekend, marking a shift in the streamer’s theatrical strategy. The weekend’s total box office reached $101.6m, up 45% from last year, with the year-to-date standing at $8.2bn, a 20% increase from 2025. The story was first reported by The Guardian.