Hirokazu Kore-eda's tender, deeply moving Nobody Knows is the rare film that successfully tells its tale of childhood from the children's point of view. Inspired by real events, it's the story of four kids, aged 4–12, who are abandoned in a Tokyo apartment by their flighty mother.

When she leaves behind a pile of cash and a note saying that she'll be gone for a while, Akira, the eldest, takes charge. None of children has ever attended school and they're used to amusing themselves indoors, but being completely on their own is very different from receiving their mother's loving, if sporadic, care.

As critic Marjorie Baumgarten observed in The Austin Chronicle, "Their predicament is sad although the film is not. Kore-eda captures the irrepressible joys and frivolity of youth, while also showing the benign neglect of the outside world... A gem-like work whose facets gleam and slice through the story with ever-changing glints of understanding and compassion."

(2004, 140 minutes.)
In Japanese with subtitles.