Movie critics come in different packages. Some of them like to give out five star reviews like candy, and others are more curmudgeonly, rarely giving out a perfect score. I like to feel I’m in the correct boat... not too heavy-handed or too loose with my 5-star ratings. Usually I see a few movies a year worthy of five stars, but the 2026 movie release schedule has been a dearth of incredible content. I’ve seen some pretty good movies, stuff like Project Hail Mary, The Odyssey and Tony but nothing until this week really gave me that feeling of perfection that tends to lead to me handing out that fifth star.
I’m not quite yet at a hundred films for the year, but I have seen dozens and dozens of new movie releases ranging from streaming flicks to big budget box office ventures. Most of these have not been documentaries, candidly, and it was a huge surprise to me that the best movie I’ve seen up until this point was a nearly three-hour behemoth from Nathan Fielder about Elizabeth Holmes and her family.
Yes, I am talking about You Can See Everything, the upcoming A24 movie that already blew up when the trailer featuring so much Elizabeth Holmes released. It immediately went viral, sparking reactions from people excitedly awaiting the film. Early reactors to the movie threw out some truly wild descriptions, and in general this flick has been buzzy long before I got to the theater to watch it.
It makes sense. People have been fascinated by Holmes for a while, and this became even more true after The Dropout hit Hulu in 2022 (which subsequently comes up in the doc). Nathan Fielder is also a popular comedian and documentarian, and occupies an important place in between the worlds of comedy and journalism.
I don’t want to get too much into the twists and turns of where You Can See Everything takes the audience, but while the title is apt, it’s also semi-meaningless. Every time you feel like you get a grasp of the stakeholders in the film — all of them, not just Elizabeth Holmes herself – something happens that twists your expectations on its head. I’ve never seen anything like this movie.
The documentary picks up right before Holmes surrenders for her prison sentence, and beyond the compelling storyline, it is also shot and formatted in an unusual manner. It also intentionally sets up into three parts. It would be easy to see this as a short TV series, but it had my rapt attention as a movie, and I’m glad it’s not.
Normally at this point in the year, I would have a shortlist of two, if not more movies I loved enough to give five stars. I wouldn't say I'm overly generous with this rating, but last year, for example, Warfare and How To Train Your Dragon nabbed that honor, before being joined by Marty Supreme around the end of the year. (Two of these movies landed on CinemaBlend's Top 2025 movies list.) This year, I've seen a lot of solid movies, but even something like The Odyssey didn't land perfectly given it was go-go-go and less character-driven than I would have hoped. Liked it a lot. It hasn't stuck with me like this movie has.
At this point, I kind of thought I'd make it to the holiday season before a movie really wowed me, so I was pleasantly surprised by my experience. It's coming to theaters very soon, too. You Can See Everything is out October 16th.
