Nobody Knows

Nobody Knows (誰も知らない, 2004) is Hirokazu Kore-eda's quietly devastating drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Four children, each with a different father, share one cramped Tokyo apartment — and three of them are kept hidden from the landlord, who thinks only one child lives there.

Then their mother packs a bag, leaves a little cash and a note, and disappears. Twelve-year-old Akira becomes the head of the household: buying groceries, stretching the money, lying to neighbors, keeping his siblings out of sight. The summer drags on, the bills pile up, and no adult comes back. Kore-eda lets the camera sit still and simply watch four kids try to raise themselves.

The story grew out of a real case that shocked Japan in the late 1980s, and Kore-eda shot over the course of more than a year so the children visibly aged on screen. Yuya Yagira, as Akira, took the Best Actor prize at Cannes — the youngest winner the festival had ever named. Slow, hushed, free of a single false note, it cuts deeper than any tearjerker. Stream Nobody Knows (2004) online on iFILM.