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‘You Can See Everything’ Is Closing In on ‘The Odyssey’ in the Best Picture Race, and It Could Make Oscar History

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Awards season usually builds slowly, with a frontrunner emerging in the summer and rivals chipping away through the fall. This year the Best Picture odds have taken a wild turn. A race that looked like a coronation for one of the year’s biggest blockbusters now has an unlikely challenger breathing down its neck.

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey‘ opened in July, dominated the box office and went on to lead the prediction markets for months. It debuted with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score and came from the director whose last film, ‘Oppenheimer,’ swept the Academy Awards. The 99th Academy Awards will be held on March 14.

But the market is telling a different story right now. On Polymarket, ‘The Odyssey’ sits at 45% to win Best Picture, while ‘You Can See Everything‘ has climbed to 25%. The chart shows the Nolan epic’s line sliding downward while the documentary’s line has climbed steadily.

For much of the spring, four contenders traded places near the top of the Best Picture board. That changed once Nolan’s film opened, and it pulled away quickly. By August, ‘The Odyssey’ had racked up more than $1.1 billion globally, and Polymarket had it at 49 cents on the dollar, with ‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Wild Horse Nine’ far behind.

The film’s pedigree helps, with a $250 million Universal production and a cast that includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong’o. Still, history cuts against it, since fantasy films rarely win Best Picture. Only a small handful, including ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,’ have managed it in more than 90 years of the ceremony.

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‘You Can See Everything’ is the A24 documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim that follows Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes during the 34 days before she reported to prison. It premiered at a secret screening in Telluride on September 6, and it has since become one of the biggest surprises of the year. Its roughly $15 million opening weekend came from just 855 theaters, with a 99% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film cost only $7 million to make, and A24 is now campaigning on an unusually broad scale. It’s being submitted for Best Picture, director, cinematography and costume design alongside the traditional Best Documentary category. It’s even being submitted for Best Supporting Actress for Amanda Seyfried, who appears in the film playing herself and a version of Holmes.

No documentary has ever been nominated for Best Picture, so the film would be making Oscar history just by landing a spot. About three weeks ago, Kalshi gave it a 41% chance of becoming the first. The category is decided by the full membership of roughly 11,000 voters.

Some critics have gone further than a nomination. A Variety columnist argued that the film is almost certain to be nominated and is a serious contender to win. Variety’s own predictions still have ‘The Odyssey’ pegged as the winner, though, with a Best Picture nomination for the documentary.

The Academy will announce its 10 Best Picture nominees on January 21, 2027, and only then will the field come into focus. Prediction market prices are simply crowd-sourced odds, and they can swing quickly as precursor awards, box office and campaigns play out. Right now, one is a billion-dollar blockbuster from a proven Oscar winner, while the other is a low-budget documentary riding a wave of buzz.

Which film do you think will win Best Picture at the 99th Academy Awards?

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