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Nobody Knows
IFC Films


8.9

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 48 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic elements and some sexual references

Starring Yûya Yagira, Ayu Kitaura, Hiei Kimura, Momoko Shimizu, Hanae Kan, You, Kazumi Kushida, and Yukiko Okamoto

Set in Tokyo, this is an exceptional story of a makeshift family of children left to survive in an urban jungle. (IFC Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Hirokazu Koreeda
DIRECTED BY:	Hirokazu Koreeda
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 13, 2005 Theatrical: February 4, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	141 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Japan
LANGUAGE(S):	Japanese (with English subtitles)

Original title "Dare mo shiranai"; Best Actor (Yagira), 2004 Cannes Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Yagira's performance is so extraordinary, it won him the best actor prize at the 2004 Cannes film festival.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

The film, winsome and tragic at once and finely attuned to the rhythms of childhood, always seems quite close to real life.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Nobody Knows, by the often excellent Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, is one of those special movies that can give us a new way of seeing.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

[The children's] remarkable lack of self-consciousness ... and Kore-eda's quasi-documentary style give this movie a stunning credibility.

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

It's a quietly powerful work, pulsing with gentle humor and a gripping sense of imminent calamity and dread.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Beautiful, elevating and achingly sad.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Moves at a stately pace; it's a long film, to boot. But there's real drama and pathos in the story, in the blend of matter-of-factness and potential catastrophe, in the depiction of innocence imperiled.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The kids in Nobody Knows are most decidedly not crazy, and we come to care for them to an almost excruciating degree.

Slate David Edelstein

Pure and universal.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Apart from a singer named You who plays Keiko, the members of the cast are non-professionals. You may find that hard to believe when you see this astonishing film, as I hope you will.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Unfolds with such leisurely, terrible beauty, it takes a while to realize that what we are witnessing is the children's long slide into beggary, exacerbated by the slow torture of faint hope.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Not for the faint of heart, though it has no scenes of overt violence, and barely a tear is shed. It is also strangely thrilling, not only because of the quiet assurance of Mr. Kore-eda's direction, but also because of his alert, humane sense of sympathy.

Chicago Reader Jim Healy

Yuya Yagira, winner of the best actor award at Cannes this year, is superb as the protective eldest child; he and his other nonprofessional costars are quietly heartbreaking.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Nobody Knows is the rare film that successfully tells its tale of childhood from the children’s point of view.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

You won't forget Nobody Knows, the quietly harrowing tale of four abandoned Japanese children.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Spare and elegant and harrowing, it's an ode to childhood trust being stretched until it snaps.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Kore-eda expresses the terror of the kids' predicament with a touch that's equally tender and dispassionate.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Kore-eda presents the deeply moving story in a documentary style that is both gentle and compelling.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There are moments in Yagira's performance that will break your heart.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Nothing short of mesmerizing.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

There is not much progress in the film: actions are repeated and repeated...Yet the film is sustained--and, for the most part, well sustained--by the children.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Kore-eda doesn't create the simultaneous sense of being destroyed and exalted that the greatest humanist movies do, but he's stayed true to his title.

Variety Derek Elley

Kore-eda sketches the inner, spiritual and emotional lives of the children with subtlety and sensitivity, delivering the goods after a seemingly directionless first half.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

I certainly came out of Nobody Knows feeling numb; only later, reflecting on the fact that the movie was inspired by a true story, did it occur to me that the numbness could have been deliberate, and that what suffused this picture was a mist of anger.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

It's a heart-sundering vision of preadolescent helplessness that rivals passages of "Landscape in the Mist" and "Ponette."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Loosely structured around four seasons, Nobody Knows unfolds in a long series of episodes that slowly progress from lightly comic to bracingly sad as the situation deteriorates.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda's most accessible film to date is also his most wrenching.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

A beautiful but depressing film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Luminous, melancholy and ultimately heartbreaking.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Excellent, troubling social commentary based on a true story.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Beguiling but long-winded.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 48 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jack L. gave it a10:
This movie is strangely mesmerizing and heartbreaking. There was no drama, no crying in the movie but I have endured one of the most intensely painful experience. Powerful movie!!! The movie is well acted and directed. There is no wasted moment in the whole 141 minutes. Every scene is well chosen and has its own effect to the audiences. There are some silent scenes in which the camera just stays still, capturing the very normal, unnoticed things of their life; and these scenes are precious. The ones who call this movie "boring" watch too many typical, bomb-blowing, gun-firing Hollywood drama. The repetition of the film IS THE POINT!!! That's how life is. Look at your life for a second. Is that what life is, a series of repetitive thing: we get up in the morning, we eat breakfast, we go to work/ school, and then we go home, we have dinner, we sleep and then we wake up again the next morning. These children and their life is portrayed beautifully real. It is NOT BORING!!! It is mesmerizing and heartbreaking. Those who say it boring, again, watch too much cheesy Hollywood film. What do they expect? A car accident? A gun-fire? A murder? The thieves get in to their apartment? Look at your life. These things don't come around as often as they do in Hollywood films. This movie is emotionally exhausted but it is never a waste to experience something like this. POWERFUL. Oh, and to Potechi who finds it is unbelievable to have a junior high/ high school outsider join the kids, I just want to say that for me, it is totally believable. You cannot use your cynical, protective, and doubtful sense of the adult to try to make sense the kid's world. Look at the details in the movie or the children who play at any park in real life. They play together. They laugh together. Only the adults are the one who are lonely, cynical, isolated and masked. The movie is utterly real and precious. A MUST SEE. What you experience in the movie maybe is what the four kids are experiencing themselves. The movie puts you in their life and make you experience it. So if you feel mind-numbing or bored or curious (about the mother) or heartbroken or emotionally drained or repressed, I think it would probably be what the children are enduring. Hope you will appreciate it.

Rich Y. gave it a10:
The writer/director used his creative license to embellish the actual event and made it even more tragic and heartwrenching. But the fact remains that this is a stunning piece of work that needs to be witnessed. As other reviewers noted, I was completely immersed in the film I that the hours went unnoticed as well as the "acting" by these children. It was a very emotionally exhausting cinematic experience but it was also one of the most beautifully told stories I'd ever seen in my life.

Potechi gave it a6:
The movie was good but could've used some serious cutting. The film also lost it's realism near the end for me because of the children's unnatural, unwavering behaviour. It's pushing it already to think that the 3 siblings would act in this certain manner but adding a juniorhigh/highschool outsider to the bunch makes it the more unbelievable.

Brent C. gave it a10:
I just rented this movie. I was overwelmed with emotions. I couldnt stop crying at times. I felt like I was with them going thru the same pain. It is now one of the best films I have ever seen.

Danh N. gave it a10:
I just watched this movie and man was it great... it isn't your normal movie. If you want a movie with action this isn't it. It was slow and calm all the way through the two hours and twenty-one minutes. But it showed how these kids grew up and bonded... its a must see if you like eastern style movies.

Winifred A gave it a10:
I happened to catch this film on cable several nights ago. In a word, it's ‘gripping.’ It is one of those rare films that will resonate deep within your psyche. One of the most moving films I've ever seen in my life. I understand that the young actor won an award in Cannes - well deserved. But how tragic that this was based on true events, and even more tragic that such events continue to happen in our world.

Pete J. gave it an8:
A must-see for fans of Japanese movies an incredible movie

Nobody Knows IFC Films

Nobody Knows
IFC Films