Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim gave Toronto moviegoers an unexpected bonus Thursday night, surprising fans at a special screening of their critically acclaimed Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything” at Cineplex Yonge-Eglinton.
Fielder, the Vancouver-born comedian and filmmaker, thanked the audience for attending before joking about the timing of the Canadian premiere, which came after the film had already opened in theatres on Oct. 16. “A Canadian premiere means a premiere that is a week after its out nationwide,” he said.
The three-hour A24 documentary follows disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes who invited a film crew into her California home 34 days before she had to report to prison. What started as an intimate portrait became a three-year project involving Holmes, her partner Billy Evans and their family.
Fielder told the Toronto audience he had been watching from the U.S. as local screenings filled up.
“It made me so happy to see everyone coming out and to see this right away,” said Fielder, who lived in Toronto for a period of time after enrolling in Humber College’s comedy program in 2006.
Fielder and Oppenheim also took part in a Q&A after the screening about how the film came together and the unusual access they had to Holmes and her family.
Oppenheim said the original plan was to keep Fielder behind the camera, but Holmes and Evans kept turning their attention toward him while filming. “It felt like they were pulling him from behind the camera to in front of it,” he said.
The filmmakers shot about 700 hours of footage, sometimes filming for as long as 16 hours a day, according to the co-directors. Fielder said members of the crew came away with different interpretations of what they had witnessed despite spending so much time inside Holmes’s world.
The documentary has received strong reviews. Star film critic Peter Howell called it the year’s best documentary and potentially the best movie of 2026. As of Friday, it held a 97 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a 97 per cent audience score.
The film revisits Holmes years after the collapse of Theranos, the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup she founded at 19. Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and is serving a federal prison sentence. Rather than simply retelling the scandal, Fielder and Oppenheim focus on Holmes’s attempts to explain herself and the filmmakers’ struggle to determine what, and whom, to believe.
Thursday’s appearance also had a distinctly Canadian flavour. The directors discussed Canadian films and filmmakers that influenced them, including Don Shebib’s “Goin’ Down the Road,” Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg” and Peter Lynch’s “Project Grizzly.” Filmmakers Sarah Polley and Don McKellar were also among the guests.
“I do think you guys have the best documentarians and some of the best filmmakers on the planet,” said Oppenheim at the screening.
“You Can See Everything” is now playing in theatres.
With files from Peter Howell
