Elizabeth Holmes documentary becomes a U.S. cultural phenomenon

A three-hour Elizabeth Holmes documentary opened on October 16 and went on to lead the U.S. box office, an uncommon outcome for a nonfiction film.

“Tudo Pode Ser Visto,” co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, uses extended dialogue and fixed shots to revisit a story already heavily covered in the United States. The film’s Brazilian theatrical debut is projected for November 26.

Holmes, once a rising star in biotechnology, went to prison for fraud in 2023. As founder of Theranos, she claimed the company could perform medical tests with a few drops of blood. Holmes has also been described as the female version of Steve Jobs. Her rise and fall had already appeared in reporting, podcasts and a fictional miniseries.

Since the October 16 opening, memes, lookalike contests and television parodies have spread images of Holmes and Fielder. Fielder also narrates, interviews subjects and serves as one of the documentary’s central figures. The response has extended beyond the internet, making the film a cultural phenomenon as well as a cinema success.

What made a familiar Holmes story resonate?

The documentary sits between a reality show, cinéma vérité and fiction. It repeatedly forces viewers to reassess whether Holmes was sincere, had deceived herself, or was another person’s victim. The film follows a woman convicted of fraud who continues trying to convince others otherwise.

Alexandra Lesnik, 29, attended on a weekday in a sold-out Brooklyn cinema. “I followed this story very closely over the years,” she said. “But I feel this was a new, different perspective on her.”

She added: “It was the first documentary I had ever watched in a cinema. I thought it was an excellent film that made me question many things I had already thought about before.”

Nathan Seyers, 53, came to the film after friends discussed the impact it had made on them. “It’s probably one of the five best films I’ve ever seen,” he said after leaving the cinema.

Kate Rennebohm, a cinema professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, said: “There is no doubt that the film caught the public’s attention in a profound way.” She said students waited after class every day for two weeks after the premiere to discuss it.

Avery Smith, a 27-year-old New Yorker, offered a different measure of success. “What impressed me most was the way our perspective changes all the time,” he said.

Taken together, viewers said a fresh angle could keep a familiar scandal in daily conversation.

How did A24 create demand through secrecy?

Several critics credited Fielder’s popularity with the documentary’s success. The comedian built a cult following on American television through programs combining dry humor with experiments that often lead to awkward situations.

Nora Stone, a cinema professor at the University of North Alabama and documentary specialist, called the publicity campaign “extraordinary.”

The production remained secret until a surprise screening at the Telluride Festival in Colorado in September. Stone said independent studio A24 then put its full advertising machinery behind the release.

Geoffrey Lokke, a researcher at Columbia University, said the directors’ request that audiences not reveal details reinforced the film’s mystery and increased public curiosity.

The rollout paired restricted information with a broad studio campaign.

What does the film say about post-truth and marketing?

Nora Stone compared the documentary’s central dynamic to post-truth politics: “It perfectly encapsulates the post-truth era. Elizabeth Holmes does exactly what Donald Trump does: deny, deny, deny. Never admit any error.”

The film does not spare its producers. Its focus on large sums of money, disclosed over the three-hour running time, prompts questions about A24’s image and Holmes’s husband.

For Rennebohm, Holmes unintentionally embodied “a culture of self-deception and denial of reality” deeply rooted in Silicon Valley and the American technology industry.

She warned: “This culture is now reaching a critical point,” linking that trend to the threats represented by artificial intelligence.

The takeaway is stark: Holmes’s repeated denials became the story’s clearest link to a broader post-truth culture.

For marketers, the release shows that scarcity, a cult figure and a familiar scandal can drive theatrical interest. Rennebohm’s warning that denial has reached a critical point, with AI adding new threats, raises a broader test for brands: earning attention without feeding the denial she describes.