DGA Rules 'You Can See Everything' Out of Feature Prize Race

The Directors Guild of America has ruled Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's "You Can See Everything" ineligible for its top theatrical feature award, a DGA representative confirmed to Variety. The A24 film about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will compete solely for outstanding directorial achievement in documentary.

The guild grounded its decision in its own rule book. The entry criteria for the theatrical feature film award state plainly: "re-releases, animated films and documentaries are not eligible." That language leaves no apparent room for a hybrid classification or an exception.

The ruling frustrates a carefully built campaign. A24 and several awards strategists had hoped the film's unusual construction, which blurs the line between nonfiction and staged narrative, might persuade the guild to treat it as both a feature and a documentary. The argument gained momentum after Amanda Seyfried, who appears in the film and previously won an Emmy for playing Holmes in the Hulu limited series "The Dropout," was positioned for supporting actress consideration at the Oscars.

Why does the DGA category matter?

The DGA feature award is one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers in existence. Only eight times in the guild's history has the DGA winner failed to go on to win the Academy Award for best director. The award has aligned with the best director Oscar in all but a handful of years since 1949.

What does this change for the film? It loses a key piece of precursor momentum. A documentary win at the guild could still bolster its standing in the Academy's documentary feature race and in best picture, a category that has never had a nonfiction film nominated.

The DGA classifies films based on how they are produced and submitted, not on how other awards bodies interpret them. By that measure, "You Can See Everything" is a documentary, full stop.

Where else can the film compete?

The 174-minute film opened in theaters on Oct. 16 and has drawn some of the strongest reviews of the year and exceptional box office. Critics and audiences continue to debate whether it is a traditional documentary, a reality television-like concept or something new entirely.

A24 and its strategists remain in active conversations with other guilds and awards bodies, including BAFTA, SAG-AFTRA and the Golden Globes, about how such a film should be classified.

At the 99th Academy Awards, the film will be submitted across a wide slate of categories, as listed on A24's awards site:

• Best picture (Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Tatiana Bears, Maggie Ambrose, Jack Davis)
• Director (Fielder and Oppenheim)
• Supporting actress (Seyfried)
• Supporting actor (Christopher Abbott)
• Production design (Alex DiGerlando, Rebecca Meis)
• Cinematography (David Bolen)
• Costume design (Katina Danabassis)
• Film editing (Adam Locke-Norton)
• Makeup and hairstyling (Stephanie Pasicov, Kerrie Smith)
• Sound (Paul Hsu, Richard Carlos)
• Original score (Ari Balouzian)

Nominations for the 79th annual DGA Awards will be announced in January. A24 declined to comment. How BAFTA, SAG-AFTRA and the Golden Globes classify the film could determine whether its cross-category Oscar ambitions survive the guild season intact.