‘You Can’t See Anything’: the slow rollout of Nathan Fielder’s movie is agony for foreign filmgoers

By David Mack, CNN

(CNN) — In the US and Canada, “You Can See Everything,” Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s meta-documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, is a box-office success, a critical darling and a word-of-mouth sensation. But foreign filmgoers, like Ilia Krasilshchik, have been experiencing a very real sense of FOMO.

When the 39-year-old Berlin resident could no longer face the flood of memes and posts about the movie on social media, he and his wife did the only thing they could think of: Left Germany, where it is not playing, and crossed the border to see it in Poland, where it is.

Driving two hours to the Polish city of Szczecin, the pair watched the movie with Polish subtitles, having gotten the idea for the trip from a friend who had made the voyage. (Others online have said they’ve done or are considering doing the same.) When the movie ended, they turned around and drove the 93 miles back, dissecting its many twists and turns on their journey home. “I love that we did it,” Krasilshchik said. “I spent two hours in the car coming back and it was like, ‘Wow. What did we just watch?! How great that we went to Poland to do this!’”

It was the first time Krasilshchik has ever traveled to another country just to watch a movie, but he felt they had little choice. “It’s impossible to watch this movie in Western Europe right now,” Krasilshchik said. “It’s just impossible.”

A slow foreign rollout for a movie of this type is not abnormal. Smaller films rarely open simultaneously across multiple markets at once, and it can often take months for a movie to land in international cinemas. Still, it’s been an agonizing wait for Fielder fans in foreign countries who have to wait weeks or months before they will get the chance to see it. So far, the film has only opened officially in Turkey (some cinemas in Poland, like the one Krasilshchik attended, have been holding previews), and other countries will need to wait considerable time. If you live in the UK, for example, you won’t be able to screen it until Nov. 20. France? Try Dec. 30.

This delay has left audiences abroad doing everything they can to avoid having the film’s secrets ruined for them. “Trying to avoid spoilers online is hard, even when you know you can see it,” said Jonathan O’Brien, a 30-year-old in Melbourne, Australia, where the film won’t come out until Nov. 12. “When you know you have a month’s delay, and you have to start setting up systems to not have this thing kind of destroyed — that’s a semi-common feature of being a film lover in Australia.”

“No one in the world even knew this film existed”

The demand for the film, both in the US and abroad, has come as something of a surprise, even to A24, the film studio behind it, given neither Fielder nor Holmes seemed like sure box-office bets, in addition to it being a nearly three-hour film about a fairly oversaturated topic. “I don’t think anyone could have predicted it,” said a source close to the studio, who asked for anonymity to speak freely about internal discussions. “You never know how the world is going to react, which is what makes this so exciting.”

The film was made in near-secret, with fewer than 10 people at the 300-person A24 aware of its existence for years, according to the Wall Street Journal, which ensured immediate buzz after its surprise unveiling at the Telluride Film Festival in early September. But that also meant the rest of A24 was operating at something of a handicap when it came to planning releases in the territories where the studio typically distributes its own pictures (Australia and the UK) or negotiating deals with distributors for other markets, which can involve conversations with exhibitors, negotiating with various countries’ ratings agencies and devising marketing plans.

“Reminder that no one in the world even knew this film existed six weeks ago,” said the studio source. “It was launched as a true surprise and delight and first of its kind. In order to keep it secret, a lot of the process for film release in other regions have just begun.”

As this process continues, O’Brien and his friends in Melbourne have resorted to muting key words on social media or trying to close their eyes as they scroll and encounter anything that looks like a potential spoiler. But O’Brien isn’t just scared that some of the movie’s surprises will be revealed to him before he gets the chance to see it. He feels an active sense that he’s missing out on being able to participate in the lively discourse around the movie. “You want to see the movie, but you also want to have seen the movie,” he said. “It’s a real sense of FOMO.” He said, “It’s like being late to the party, and everyone cool has already left.”

Online, other foreign filmgoers have bemoaned what has felt to them like an agonizingly slow rollout for a movie on everyone’s lips. “Being a cinephile outside the US,” read one viral X post that was accompanied by a poster of the film edited to read “You Can’t See Anything.” On Reddit, posts criticizing the international release schedule have received thousands of “upvotes.” Internet users have joked about staging cinema sit-ins or getting violent. “You Can See Everything unless you’re from Australia or the UK or France or Mexico or Ireland or New Zealand or the Philippines or India or,” read another X post.

Anticipation builds

The film’s domestic rollout was also staggered to build anticipation. When “You Can See Everything” began screening in the US, it was initially in some 855 theaters — a moderate number for a typical movie, but huge for a documentary. Those in states where it wasn’t showing begged for others online not to ruin the movie ahead of it finally expanding into more than 2,600 theaters on its second weekend. With the movie now vying to take the No. 1 spot at the box office, it is expanding to roughly an additional 600 theaters on Halloween weekend.

The enormously positive reception the film has received in the US among both critics and audiences will make it easier to sell overseas, given many cinephiles will be keen to see the first documentary that seems poised to earn a best picture nomination at the Oscars. Early signs show the demand is there. In Australia, Palace Cinemas, which operates 25 cinemas across the country, reported faster single-day pre-sales for “You Can See Everything” for any film since Taylor Swift’s concert documentary on her Eras Tour, according to the source close to A24.

All this buzz led to something of a bidding war to acquire foreign distribution rights, with Sony Pictures emerging victorious to handle distribution for Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Africa, India, South Korea, Greece, Scandinavia, Germany and Austria. A Sony representative said, “Release dates are still being finalized, but given the film’s strong domestic performance and the international interest we’re seeing, we’re working to bring it to audiences across our territories as quickly as possible.” A24 has also made deals to distribute the film in other European countries, but with wildly different release windows. In Portugal, for example, the movie will screen from Nov. 12, but those in neighboring Spain will need to wait until Dec. 24, meaning some Spaniards may choose to follow Krasilshchik’s example and take a cross-country road trip.

As luck would have it, O’Brien, the Melbourne film fan, is traveling to the US next week for work and plans to finally see the movie while transiting in DC. Despite the expected jetlag, he’s not going to pass up the chance to see the movie several days before those back home can. “The moment I mentioned to my friends that that I’ll very likely go see it in America before them,” O’Brien said, “it was immediately like, ‘You better not say a goddamn thing about this.’”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.