Fielder's Secret Holmes Doc Detonates Telluride and Oscar Race

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's secret Telluride screening of 'You Can See Everything' has Variety reporting A24 eyeing a historic best picture play.

A24 revealed 'You Can See Everything' as Telluride's secret screening on Sunday night, dropping a teaser the moment the film hit play and announcing an October theatrical release. Variety reports the line outside the Werner Herzog Theatre became the longest of the festival, with phones locked in pouches and security working the aisles in night-vision goggles while a programmer half-jokingly warned the crowd not to spoil it. The film, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, follows Elizabeth Holmes from 34 days before she reported to prison, per a synopsis ABC News cites from A24's website.

Holmes had previously refused to participate in any chronicle of her downfall; as the Seattle Times reports, earlier documentaries like Alex Gibney's 'The Inventor' and Hulu's 'The Dropout' were made without her involvement. Instead, she invited a crew into her rented Southern California home, and the filmmakers the Seattle Times identifies as absurdist comedian Fielder and documentarian Oppenheim stayed for three years. Yahoo Entertainment notes Fielder told a Telluride Q&A moderated by Emma Stone, 'I really am struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced,' and that even the crew could not agree on what was happening in the house.

Variety describes a boxed-in 4:3 frame shot by cinematographer David Bolen, editing by Fielder's two-decade collaborator Adam Locke-Norton that lets non-answers hang, and a noir score from Ari Balouzian of the soul trio Gabriels. The Seattle Times reports the film reveals that Holmes, serving time at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, and her partner Billy Evans are planning 'to launch a new and improved Theranos.' Fielder moved into the home two weeks before her prison departure, according to the Seattle Times, and gave the couple repeated chances to turn off the cameras. Yahoo Entertainment reports that Holmes and Evans have not yet seen the finished film.

Variety reports A24 insiders are eyeing the documentary not primarily for the documentary branch but as a best picture play, and asks whether the studio can challenge MGM's record of five best picture nominations at the ninth Academy Awards in 1937. According to Variety, no documentary has ever been nominated for best picture across 98 ceremonies, so a nod would be historic. The outlet also confirms the film's central performance is Oscar-eligible, though not for SAG, even as questions linger about how much of it is 'scripted.'

Variety flags significant obstacles: the documentary branch has never fully embraced participatory, comedy-adjacent nonfiction, the roughly three-hour runtime is a genuine ask, and any campaign must argue the film indicts rather than rehabilitates a convicted fraudster. Variety's sources describe the movie as a study of the impossibility of knowing what is real, rather than a redemption tour.

The film hits theaters October 16, per the Seattle Times, early enough to build momentum through the fall precursor circuit Variety lists — the Gothams, IDA Documentary Awards, Critics Choice Documentary, Cinema Eye Honors and the DGA documentary prize. Variety notes A24's wider slate, including 'Primetime,' which stunned Venice, plus Toronto titles, could push the studio toward that 90-year-old record. In the teaser, Holmes insists, 'I'm always being real' — a line she also used to caption the trailer on her own social media, as Yahoo Entertainment reports.