You Can See Everything vs The Dropout vs The Inventor: which Elizabeth Holmes story should you watch?
Watch You Can See Everything if you want the strangest, most original take on Elizabeth Holmes, The Dropout if you want the story told as gripping drama, and The Inventor if you want the facts of the Theranos fraud laid out clearly. If you only have time for one and don’t know the story yet, start with The Inventor, then go and see Fielder’s film while it’s still in cinemas.
Label: comparison and opinion. Box office and review figures come from IndieWire, Rotten Tomatoes and Screen Daily, linked below. Mood Match picks are Pylcrow’s opinion.
What is You Can See Everything?
It’s an A24 documentary directed by Nathan Fielder, his first feature film as director, with Lance Oppenheim. In 2023, before Elizabeth Holmes reported to prison, Fielder embedded himself in the rental home where she was living. The film is what came out of that.
It’s long, at 174 minutes, and it’s a hit. It opened to about $15.6 million, the best per-screen average for a film on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat, according to IndieWire. It then topped the October 30 to November 1 weekend, as reported by Rotten Tomatoes, and critics love it, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, per MovieWeb.
If you’ve seen Fielder’s The Rehearsal, you’ll know the tone: funny, uncomfortable, and more interested in how people perform than in what they say.
How does The Dropout tell the story?
The Dropout is a scripted Hulu series that premiered in March 2022, with Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. Seyfried won the Emmy for the role. It follows Holmes from Stanford dropout to Silicon Valley star to the collapse of Theranos.
It’s the most entertaining of the three, and the easiest to binge. It’s also a dramatisation, so some conversations are imagined. Treat it as a well-researched retelling, not a record.
What does The Inventor add?
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is Alex Gibney’s 2019 HBO documentary. It uses real footage of Holmes, interviews with former employees and whistleblowers, and explains exactly how the blood-testing claims fell apart.
It’s the clearest of the three. It doesn’t have Fielder’s access or The Dropout’s drama, but if you want to understand what Theranos actually did wrong, this is the one.
Which one matches your mood?
Here’s our Pylcrow Mood Match for the three:
| Your mood | Watch | Why |
|---|---|---|
| I want something I’ve never seen before | You Can See Everything | Nobody else has made a documentary like this |
| I want to binge a gripping story | The Dropout | Eight episodes, great lead performance |
| I want the facts, fast | The Inventor | A clear two-hour account of the fraud |
| I want to argue about it afterwards | You Can See Everything | It leaves you unsure what was real |
And here’s how we score them out of 10:
| Title | Format | Length | Pylcrow score |
|---|---|---|---|
| You Can See Everything (2026) | Documentary, in cinemas | 174 minutes | 9/10 |
| The Dropout (2022) | Drama series, Hulu / Disney+ | 8 episodes | 8/10 |
| The Inventor (2019) | Documentary, HBO | About 2 hours | 7/10 |
Pylcrow’s take: watch them in order, and Fielder’s film hits harder
The best way to watch is The Inventor first, The Dropout second, and You Can See Everything last. Once you know the facts and the dramatised version, Fielder’s film becomes a kind of answer to both: what is Elizabeth Holmes like when the cameras are supposed to be off?
It’s also proof that audiences will turn up for a three-hour documentary if it feels new. That’s the most hopeful box-office story of the year.
Frequently asked questions
Is You Can See Everything streaming?
Not yet. It’s in cinemas from A24, which opened it on October 16, 2026. No streaming date has been announced.
How long is You Can See Everything?
It runs 174 minutes, just under three hours.
Is The Dropout a true story?
It’s based on the true story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, but it’s a dramatisation, so some scenes and dialogue are invented.
Where can I watch The Inventor?
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is an HBO documentary, available on HBO’s streaming service where it operates.
What is Pylcrow Mood Match?
It’s our series that matches what to watch to the mood you’re in, rather than ranking titles by one fixed score.
What should you read next?
More Mood Match picks: our Verity review, is the Street Fighter movie worth watching? (the film You Can See Everything opened behind) and our Clayface review. Browse everything in TV & Film.
Sources: IndieWire; Rotten Tomatoes; Screen Daily; MovieWeb; A24; Wikipedia. Scores are Pylcrow’s opinion.
