Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
The trailer for You Can See Everything, which dropped as a surprise on Sunday, starts with a close-up on, of all people, the notorious fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. “I’m engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that,” she says. But perhaps the even bigger shock is who she’s saying it to: comedian and documentarian Nathan Fielder. Holmes seems full of it—mostly because she was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors in her biotech company, Theranos, out of hundreds of millions of dollars, a crime for which she is currently serving jail time. But also because “Why would I deceive you?” is the type of thing only someone who is currently deceiving you would say—and Fielder seems like he is trying incredibly hard to abstain from laughing in her face. Fielder responds with, “OK, good chat,” but as they nod and stare at each other for much longer than necessary, he asks, straight up: “You’re being real right now?” Holmes doesn’t waver: “I’m always being real.”
By the end of the trailer, You Can See Everything reveals itself to be an upcoming A24 documentary co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, hitting theaters Oct. 16. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival the same day the trailer dropped, where the screening was kept so under wraps that the theater’s audience didn’t even know what film they were getting ready to see.
The trailer and news of the film’s existence spread like wildfire, not only because of the doc’s somewhat mythic subject, but also because Holmes will be going toe to toe with Fielder, whose work is known to sit at the overlap of real and farcical, where a confusing uncanny valley lies. In short, You Can See Everything promises to be a three-hour experiment in what happens when an unstoppable force (Fielder) meets an immovable object (Holmes).
As with all of Fielder’s work, you can’t help but ask: How the hell did he pull this off? Here’s everything we know so far about how You Can See Everything came to be.
Wait, before we get to the doc, can you remind me about the deal with Elizabeth Holmes?
Elizabeth Holmes, 42 years old, is an infamous scammer who is currently serving a 10-ish-year prison sentence after being found guilty in 2022 of defrauding investors via her biotech company, Theranos, which she founded in 2003. She (alongside her former partner and former Theranos president/COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani) claimed that the company would transform blood testing after developing a means to test incredibly small, finger-prick-esque amounts of blood, rather than the vials upon vials patients are used to giving up. The buzz around this “big, if true” technology earned Theranos a peak valuation of $9 to $10 billion in 2014.
All of this was, of course, not true. In 2018 Holmes and Balwani were indicted by a federal grand jury, and, in the end, they were both found guilty of defrauding investors through false or exaggerated claims. They were ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to their fraud victims and were meted out varying prison sentences. Holmes is currently serving her time at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas. She maintains her innocence.
And what are Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim most known for?
Fielder is a comedian and documentarian who is most known for putting on the guise of a socially awkward man as he engages in work that straddles the line between reality and fiction. This work most famously includes the Comedy Central show Nathan for You, as well as the HBO series The Rehearsal.
Oppenheim is a filmmaker and documentarian who is known for Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld, and the docuseries Ren Faire. Oppenheim’s other project this year, Primetime, a scripted film based on the rise of the mid-aughts reality show How to Catch a Predator, is currently receiving awards buzz.
How did this documentary even come about?
According to reports from Telluride attendees, who were also treated to a post-screening Q&A with Fielder and Oppenheim, Holmes and her fiancé, Billy Evans, asked a film crew to come to their rented house in Southern California (before her prison time began) to set the record straight about her. The couple reportedly desired to give their own answer to the narrative that had been painted about Holmes in the number of media projects that had taken on her story, particularly Hulu’s dramatic series.
I think I missed that, what was it?
In 2022, Hulu released a limited series about Holmes and Theranos called The Dropout—adapted from the same-named ABC news podcast—wherein Amanda Seyfried plays Holmes. The show received praise from critics and earned six Emmy nominations, alongside a number of Golden Globe nominations. Seyfried won best actress awards at both ceremonies, alongside other honors, for her portrayal of the dishonored former CEO. I have to believe she nabbed the trophies, at least in part, for the iconic scene of her, as Holmes, dancing awkwardly to rapper Lil Wayne’s 2011 hit “How to Love.”
Isn’t it kind of baffling to choose Nathan Fielder as the person to craft your rebuttal to the mainstream narrative, considering he is notoriously invasive?
Not only is he invasive, but he has a knack for bringing both the best and worst sides of humanity into searing focus, like holding a magnifying glass in the sun.
And yet, Holmes and Evans invited Fielder to live with them in their home. Surprisingly, Fielder revealed to the Telluride audience that he originally intended to stay behind the camera, but his time with Holmes and Evans reportedly “became so strange and unnerving” that he jumped into the hot spot as a co-star of the documentary.
When was this supposed to have taken place?
According to the New York Times, Holmes and Evans invited the crew into their home 34 days before she would report to prison, leaving her husband and two young children behind. Most people would consider that incredibly important family time, but then again: Most people did not pull off one of the most audacious scams in recent memory.
Do we know what You Can See Everything will entail?
Not much yet, but Vanity Fair says the three hours are “full of unexpected twists and turns and shocking reveals” as Fielder and Oppenheim make use of their “incredible access” to Holmes and Evans.
Surely those Telluride attendees are saying something …
Well, according to the New York Times, the doc reveals that Holmes and Evans are hoping “to launch a new and improved Theranos” while the former is imprisoned. Reports also mention that the documentary is honest about how heavy of a role Evans plays in managing his wife’s image. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair hints at an “extremely unexpected twist that involves the appearance of a notable Hollywood actress” who Fielder and Oppenheim asked the audience to keep anonymous.
Also intriguing is the way Fielder is said to view the film, which is that his experience still mystifies him. In the Q&A, Fielder and Oppenheim spoke about how their interactions with Holmes and Evan were so confusing that the entire crew would disagree, daily, about what had transpired. Fielder is quoted as saying that what interests him about the documentary is a hope that the general public will help him make sense of it all. “I really am struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced,” he explains, “truly, to this day, I don’t quite know what I went through.”
How has the team been able to keep this a secret for so long?
In 2025, it was reported that Fielder had visited Holmes in prison multiple times. Though this sparked speculation of an upcoming documentary, no one knew the details—especially that Fielder had lived with Holmes before she began serving her sentence.
Wow, sounds like this will be wild. Do we … know what Holmes and Evans think about the film?
According to Fielder and Oppenheim, the couple know the film exists, of course, but have not yet seen it. Fielder explained that, toward the end, Evans was “trying to exert, we felt, a lot of control over the process.”
So I guess that leaves Holmes and Evans with the rest of us, waiting patiently to see what exactly constitutes “everything” in You Can See Everything.
Facts Only
* You Can See Everything* is an upcoming A24 documentary co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted in 2022 for defrauding investors in her biotech company, Theranos, which she founded in 2003.
Holmes was found guilty of fraud and received a prison sentence and restitution order.
Nathan Fielder is a comedian and documentarian known for work balancing reality and fiction.
Lance Oppenheim is a filmmaker and documentarian known for projects like *Some Kind of Heaven* and *Spermworld*.
Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans asked a film crew to visit their home in Southern California before Holmes began prison time.
The film is scheduled for theatrical release on October 16.
Reports suggest the documentary will reveal hopes about launching a new Theranos while Holmes is imprisoned.
Nathan Fielder reported struggling to understand his experience during the creation process.
Executive Summary
Full Take
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like an engaging narrative journalism piece weaving together factual background with speculation about a documentary project, exhibiting the conversational rhythm typical of high-level feature writing.
