Lance Oppenheim: Two Awards-Season Hits at 30 — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Lance Oppenheim, the 30-year-old Florida-born director, is behind two of the year's buzziest films in the same awards season — a feat the source compares to 'sorcery'
- You Can See Everything, a three-hour documentary co-directed with Nathan Fielder, follows Elizabeth Holmes in the month before she began an 11-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy, with Variety's Oscar-predictions list identifying one cast member only as '[Redacted]'
- Primetime stars Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, host of the paedophile-sting segment on Dateline NBC that ran from 2004 to 2007 and spawned spin-offs including Hansen Vs Predators; Pattinson originally intended to produce only, not star
- Chris Hansen publicly attacked the film as 'weaponised empathy' that 'makes audiences feel sorry for the predators' and portrays him and his staff 'as ratings-obsessed, maniacal people,' while simultaneously booking trailers for his own TruBlu streaming platform to run before Primetime screenings
- Oppenheim drew on a childhood obsession with To Catch a Predator (first encountered via a South Park spoof) and references Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, Oliver Stone's JFK, Brian De Palma's Body Double and Sexy Beast as the tonal blender behind Primetime
- Oppenheim's prior work includes the 2020 debut Some Kind of Heaven (set in a Florida retirement community), 2024's Spermworld (about prolific sperm donors) and the HBO docu-fantasia Ren Faire, with fans including Ari Aster, Darren Aronofsky and the Safdie brothers
- Jeff Zucker plays himself in Primetime, having green-lit both Hansen's shows and a programme featuring the current US president, though Oppenheim stops short of calling Hansen and the president 'kindred spirits'
Why it matters: Oppenheim's dual presence in awards-season conversation — with Primetime potentially earning Pattinson an Oscar nomination and You Can See Everything tipped as the first documentary nominated for best picture — establishes the 30-year-old as a major nonfiction-fiction crossover voice, while Hansen's simultaneous attacks on and promotion of Primetime turn the film's release into its own media event.
Ask SkimNews
