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A24 plans to submit You Can See Everything across major Oscar categories, including Best Picture and Best Director, after a strong theatrical opening and highly positive reviews. Its chances in the documentary category are less certain because that shortlist and the final nominees are chosen by the Academy’s Documentary Branch, whose preferences may not align with the film’s mainstream success.
A24 plans to submit You Can See Everything in a range of Oscar categories, including Best Picture and Best Director, after the documentary posted a reported $15 million opening weekend and strong critical and audience ratings. The campaign puts an unconventional film about jailed former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes into the awards conversation, but its prospects are uncertain: the Academy’s Documentary Branch controls the documentary shortlist and nominations, and its choices can differ from wider industry enthusiasm.
According to Variety, A24 intends to submit the film for Best Picture, Director, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, and Original Score. Those are submissions, not nominations; the Academy has not announced whether the film will be shortlisted or nominated. The report describes it as an unusual documentary whose approach raises questions about Holmes and reality without offering easy answers.
The film’s commercial opening gives the campaign an unusual level of visibility for a documentary. Consequence reports that its $15 million opening weekend was the largest debut since 2006 for a film opening on fewer than 1,000 screens, and the biggest opening weekend for a documentary since Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004. The source also reports a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating from both critics and audiences at the time of writing. These figures are snapshots reported in the article, not guarantees of awards support.
Early prediction lists offer a sign of the attention, not an official Academy assessment. Gold Derby placed the film 11th among potential Best Picture nominees and directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim eighth among Best Director contenders. Those rankings can change as the awards season develops. A Best Picture or Best Director nomination would be historic for a documentary, according to the source report, but neither outcome is confirmed.
A Documentary in the Best Picture Race
The campaign matters because it tests how far a documentary can travel through Oscar categories usually associated with narrative features. The film’s box-office reach and critical response could help keep it visible to voters beyond the documentary category. If it earns recognition for directing or Best Picture, it would challenge expectations about where nonfiction films fit in the Academy’s major races.
That possibility should not be confused with a likely outcome. A24’s submissions establish which categories the distributor is pursuing; they do not determine the nominees. And a film’s popularity with general audiences does not automatically translate into support among the voters responsible for the documentary shortlist. The competing pathways make the awards story worth following: success in one part of the race would not establish success in another.
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How Documentary Oscar Voting Works
The Academy’s rules define a documentary feature as a theatrically released nonfiction film dealing with subjects such as cultural, historical, social, scientific or economic matters. The rules allow techniques including partial reenactment, archival footage, still images and animation, provided the emphasis remains on fact rather than fiction. Consequence reports that You Can See Everything meets the stated eligibility requirements, including the theatrical release window and the minimum feature length of 40 minutes.
Eligibility is only the start. Members of the Academy’s Documentary Branch vote to select up to 15 films for the shortlist, then vote again to determine the five documentary nominees. The branch, described in the source as roughly 700 members, makes those decisions before the wider Academy votes on the final documentary nominees. Consequence cites Vulture awards writer Nate Jones’s analysis that the branch can favor issue-focused films and sometimes pass over titles with strong popularity or broader industry support.
““The doc branch, they’re petty, petty little bitches.””
— Zara Meerza, a documentary expert quoted by Jones
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The Documentary Shortlist Is Unsettled
No nominations have been announced, and the prediction rankings cited in the report are early estimates. The Academy’s Documentary Branch has yet to determine whether the film will make its shortlist, much less the final five. Its reported commercial performance and review scores do not establish how branch members will vote.
The source also points to past acclaimed films that did not make the documentary nominees, including American Symphony, Will & Harper and My Mom Jayne. Those examples illustrate the uncertainty but do not prove that You Can See Everything will face the same outcome. The cited report does not provide confirmed odds for the film’s technical-category submissions or explain how voters will assess its particular approach.
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Campaign and Academy Votes Ahead
The next steps are the awards campaign and the Academy’s voting rounds. A24’s planned submissions will put the film forward in the listed categories, after which the Documentary Branch’s shortlist and nomination votes will determine its standing in Documentary Feature. The full Academy’s role in that category comes later, once the nominees are set.
Until those decisions are announced, Best Picture and Best Director predictions remain provisional, and the film’s eventual reach across the categories is unknown. The key developments to watch are whether it advances on the documentary ballot and whether Academy members outside that branch respond to its broad campaign.
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Key Questions
What is the Oscar news about You Can See Everything?
A24 plans to submit the film in several categories, including Best Picture, Best Director and Documentary Feature-related awards coverage. Submission does not mean the film has been nominated.
Has the film received an Oscar nomination?
No nomination is confirmed in the source report. The Academy’s shortlist and nominations had not been announced at the time of writing.
Why might its documentary-category chances be uncertain?
The Academy’s Documentary Branch chooses the shortlist and final nominees. The source report says the branch’s preferences can differ from broader critical or popular enthusiasm.
What categories is A24 reportedly targeting?
Variety reported submissions planned for Best Picture, Director, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, and Original Score.
Could the film make Oscar history?
The source report says a Best Picture or Best Director nomination would be historic for a documentary. That remains a possibility under discussion, not a confirmed result.
Source: rss
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