You Can See Everything wins five Critics Choice Documentary Awards, including best feature

You Can See Everything, the A24 documentary directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, won all five categories it was nominated in at the 11th Critics Choice Documentary Awards, including best documentary feature. The Critics Choice Association (CCA), a group of more than 500 critics and entertainment journalists by its own count, announced the winners at a ceremony at the Edison Ballroom in New York on Sunday, November 8. Besides the top prize, the film won for directing, cinematography (David Bolen), editing (Adam Locke-Norton) and score (Ari Balouzian).

Once Upon a Time in Harlem was the other multiple winner, with three awards: best first documentary feature for David Greaves, best archival documentary and best historical documentary.

The film winners

Two series awards complete the list of 18 categories: Lion (National Geographic) won best limited documentary series and ESPN’s 30 for 30 best ongoing documentary series. By our count, A24’s single film and three NEON releases account for 10 of the 18. The CCA also gave its Critics Choice Impact Award to Ron Howard, presented by Frank Oz, and its Pennebaker Award to Jehane Noujaim, presented by Chris Hegedus. Ross Mathews hosted.

This year’s winners reflect the extraordinary creativity, ambition, and innovation shaping documentary filmmaking today.

What the two leading films are

In A24’s description, You Can See Everything starts 34 days before Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley founder, goes to prison, when she lets a film crew follow her, and grows into a project that lasts three years. A24 lists it in theaters from October 16, 2026.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem goes back to 1972. NEON says the filmmaker William Greaves organized a party that year for surviving figures of the Harlem Renaissance, who spent four hours talking, arguing and laughing, and that he filmed it on 16mm. The footage has been restored, and the film, arriving a decade after William Greaves’s death, is directed by his son, David Greaves. NEON credits William Greaves with conceiving and filming it, lists it as the 2026 winner of the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, and shows it in theaters now.

What comes next in the documentary race

The Gotham Awards name their winners at Cipriani Wall Street in New York on Monday, November 30. Their five nominees for best documentary feature are Closure, A Fox Under a Pink Moon, NAZA, Once Upon a Time in Harlem and You Can See Everything, so three of the five have now won a Critics Choice award, by our comparison of the two lists. Our Gotham nominations story has the full Gotham field.

For the Oscars, the Academy’s final submission deadline for documentary features was October 15. Its key-dates page sets the shortlists for Tuesday, December 15, the nominations for Thursday, January 21, 2027, and the 99th Oscars for Sunday, March 14, 2027. The CCA’s film categories cover documentaries first released commercially in the U.S. during 2026, in theaters, on TV or on streaming.

A five-award night is not new at these awards: the CCA’s headline for its 10th edition says The Perfect Neighbor won five awards, including best documentary feature.