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Nathan Fielder’s ‘You Can See Everything’ Could Be the First Documentary Nominated for Best Picture—and Why It Should Be

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Yes, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything has a real path to becoming the first documentary nominated for Best Picture—but that outcome is not decided. A24 is campaigning the film in both Best Documentary and Best Picture after an October 16, 2026 theatrical release. The Academy’s rules do not automatically bar a documentary from general categories, provided it meets the applicable release, submission and representation requirements. Whether it should be nominated is a critical judgment: the film’s unprecedented access to Elizabeth Holmes before prison gives that argument unusual force, but it remains an argument rather than an Academy finding.

What is You Can See Everything about?

You Can See Everything follows Elizabeth Holmes during the 34 days before she reports to federal prison. Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the film revisits the Theranos scandal from inside Holmes’s immediate pre-prison life rather than through a conventional retrospective investigation.

A24’s official For Your Consideration page identifies the project as a documentary and lists it for both Best Documentary and Best Picture. The Associated Press reported that the filmmakers shot secretly over three years, creating access that most Theranos documentaries could not obtain. Theranos was valued at $4.5 billion in 2014, and Holmes ultimately received an 11-year federal sentence, giving the film’s personal timeline a direct connection to one of the decade’s most consequential corporate scandals.

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The movie premiered at Telluride on September 6, 2026, then screened at the New York Film Festival. A24 scheduled its theatrical release for October 16, 2026, according to the Associated Press.

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Is You Can See Everything eligible for Best Picture?

It can be eligible, but eligibility is not the same as a nomination. The Academy publishes separate Best Picture and general-entry rules. Those materials set release, submission and representation requirements; they do not create an automatic documentary exclusion.

The Academy’s complete rules also state that a documentary feature submitted in the Documentary Feature category may compete in other categories when it satisfies the relevant category requirements and deadlines. That gives You Can See Everything a rules-based route into Best Picture, subject to the Academy’s review of its qualifying theatrical run, paperwork and other conditions.

What A24’s campaign does—and does not—prove

A24 is explicitly using the campaign label “BEST PICTURE” for the film. That demonstrates distributor intent and puts the movie before voters as a general-category contender; it does not mean the Academy has accepted a nomination or guaranteed a place on the ballot.

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The Academy’s 2026 rules announcement says qualifying features must have a theatrical release between January 1 and December 31, 2026. It lists September 17, 2026 as the first Best Picture/general-entry submission deadline and November 12, 2026 as the final deadline. Meeting those dates is necessary for consideration, not sufficient for a nomination.

Has a documentary ever been nominated for Best Picture?

No. Awards Review reports that no documentary has previously received a Best Picture nomination. That makes this campaign historically significant even before the Academy announces its nominees.

The absence of precedent should not be confused with a rule. It shows how rarely nonfiction films have been treated as the year’s overall cinematic standard, not that the category is closed to them. You Can See Everything would have to persuade voters that its achievement belongs in the field that recognizes a film’s total artistic and cultural impact, not only its documentary craft.

Why could this film be the first documentary nominated for Best Picture?

The strongest “can” case combines the Academy pathway with the film’s unusual form and access. The relevant question is not simply whether Holmes appears on camera, but whether the resulting work operates with the scale, tension and formal ambition voters associate with Best Picture contenders.

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Comparison axis What it means for this film
Form It is nonfiction, yet its sustained observation and encounters can be assessed alongside narrative films for structure, pacing and dramatic construction.
Access Filming Holmes in the 34 days before prison places the audience close to a subject whose public story is already widely known, potentially changing the ethical and psychological stakes.
Scale The Theranos collapse, its billions-dollar valuation and Holmes’s criminal sentence give the film a subject with national and cultural reach beyond a narrowly biographical portrait.
Campaign mechanics A24 is pursuing Best Picture while seeking a qualifying theatrical release and completing the Academy’s submission requirements.
Historical precedent Because no documentary has previously been nominated, even making the shortlist would mark a break with Oscar history.

Those factors establish a credible route, not a prediction. The Academy still has to determine whether the film meets every applicable rule and whether enough voters place it among the year’s strongest overall films.

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Why should it be nominated for Best Picture?

The “should” argument is artistic and critical rather than procedural. Holmes’s story has already been told through reporting, scripted drama and earlier documentaries. Fielder and Oppenheim instead obtained prolonged, intimate access at the moment when Holmes’s freedom, reputation and future narrowed to a prison report date. That proximity can make familiar facts feel unstable again: the audience is watching a public figure manage an intensely private countdown while carrying the unresolved consequences of Theranos.

The project also invites a broader definition of documentary achievement. Its power may lie less in presenting new evidence about Theranos than in observing how a subject inhabits an irreversible public judgment. Sustained observation, controlled encounters and the tension between what Holmes says and what viewers already know can be discussed in the same formal terms applied to ambitious narrative cinema.

Oppenheim described the production’s unsettled perspective this way: “Every person who worked on this movie was going through a similar cognitive dissonance.” That comment explains the filmmakers’ relationship to Holmes and the material; it is not proof of Oscar quality. The case for a nomination depends on what the finished film does with that dissonance—whether it becomes rigorous, revealing cinema rather than mere proximity to a notorious subject.

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When and where can you watch You Can See Everything?

A24’s reported theatrical date is October 16, 2026, following Telluride and New York Film Festival screenings. The available reporting establishes that cinema release, but not a later streaming, rental, disc or soundtrack schedule.

Do not assume that a festival screening guarantees immediate home access. A distributor can announce digital and physical availability after the theatrical window, and those dates can vary by country. As of the available reporting, no verified platform listing or home-release date had been established.

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When will we know whether it received a nomination?

The Academy’s calendar puts the 99th Oscars nominations announcement on January 21, 2027, with the ceremony scheduled for March 14, 2027. The Academy notes that dates can change.

Date Event
September 6, 2026 Telluride premiere, as reported by the Associated Press.
October 16, 2026 Scheduled A24 theatrical release.
November 12, 2026 Academy’s listed final Best Picture/general-entry submission deadline.
January 21, 2027 Scheduled 99th Oscars nominations announcement.
March 14, 2027 Scheduled 99th Oscars ceremony.

Until the nominations are announced, the precise claim is that You Can See Everything is being actively campaigned for Best Picture and has a plausible rules pathway. Calling it the first documentary nominee is premature; arguing that it deserves to be one is the film’s central critical challenge.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long is You Can See Everything?

The Associated Press describes the film as running nearly three hours. That unusually expansive length gives the filmmakers room to sustain observation rather than compress Holmes’s pre-prison period into a conventional feature documentary.

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What happened at the film’s Telluride premiere?

The September 6, 2026 Telluride screening was held without phones, according to the Associated Press. It was one of the film’s first public presentations before its New York Film Festival engagement and planned theatrical release.

Is a streaming release date confirmed?

No verified streaming, rental or disc date has been announced in the available reporting. The confirmed distribution information is the A24 theatrical release scheduled for October 16, 2026.

Why does the Best Picture campaign matter if the film is already eligible for Documentary Feature?

The two campaigns ask voters to evaluate the same work through different lenses. Documentary Feature emphasizes nonfiction achievement, while Best Picture asks whether the film belongs among the year’s leading achievements across all forms.

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Academy AwardsBest PictureDocumentaryElizabeth HolmesNathan FielderTheranosYou Can See Everything

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— The DocumentaryTube Team writes The Screening Room's guides, reviews and news, and keeps the directory's records of documentaries, their directors and where to watch them. How DocumentaryTube works.

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