As a 118-year-old man reflecting on his life, Nemo recounts alternate versions of his past, exploring the impact of key decisions through a nonlinear narrative that incorporates the multiverse hypothesis.

The ensemble cast also includes Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, Linh Dan Pham, Rhys Ifans, Natasha Little, Toby Regbo, and Juno Temple.

Van Dormael began developing Mr. Nobody in 2001, spending years crafting a screenplay that combined speculative science, experimental cinema, and motifs of human emotion.

Following creative differences with studio executives, the film's release strategy was revised, leading to a limited theatrical run beginning in Belgium and France on 13 January 2010, before expanding to streaming and home video in international markets.

The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised its screenplay, visual style, musical score, and cast performances, although its narrative structure sparked some debate.

Unlike those films, however, this one has philosophical underpinnings inspired by scientific tomes on chaos theory and the butterfly effect, pigeon superstition, and the space-time continuum.

[19] A long list of software (including Autodesk's Softimage and Maya, Side Effects' Houdini, and The Foundry's Nuke) and the creation of a multitude of in-house tools, programs, and techniques were required for the shots delivered.

[23] The soundtrack features songs by Pierre Van Dormael, Buddy Holly, Hans Zimmer, Otis Redding, Eurythmics, Pixies, Wallace Collection, Nena, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Andrews Sisters, as well as versions of "Mr. Sandman" performed by The Chordettes, The King Brothers, Emmylou Harris, and Gob, and recordings of compositions by Erik Satie and Benjamin Britten, among others.

"[25] The eloquent interplay between philosophical lifestyle and what forges reality is epitomized by the way the film constantly jumps between scenes of the young boy, the adolescent, and the mature man.

Mr. Nobody raises many ontological arguments about the subjective nature of time[27] and investigates how actions have universal consequences, and how every single choice, irrespective of its simplicity or complexity, can make, alter, or change a lifetime.

[33] The film portrays a life where we are all subject to chance, the dimensions by which we construct our reality (height, length, width, and time), and the imagination of our former selves, and, once the boy Nemo knows the outcome of a given choice, he instinctively opts for another.

The color differentiation can be traced as far back as Nemo's childhood, where his possible future wives, Jean, Elise, and Anna, sit on a bench, wearing yellow, blue, and red dresses, respectively.

[38] At the end of his life, Nemo is a decrepit old man and lives in a white surrounding (room, clothes, doctor), indicating that the fate of the protagonist leads him back to his origins—the point at which everything is possible.

Wild Bunch, seeing this cut as failing to meet their expectations, decided to withdraw the film from the Biennale, marking an unprecedented move in the festival's history.

[51] Citing creative differences with the director, Wild Bunch, the film's international distributor, restructured the distribution strategy and marketing campaign, aiming to mitigate what they anticipated as potential financial losses.

[53] Writing for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Nick Lowe remarked that the film “was all but dumped by its distributors," while Jean-Philippe Thiriart, in a report for Ardenne magazine, observed that Wild Bunch had clearly prevailed in the dispute with Van Dormael.

[57] Van Dormael described the home media release as a way to present the film in its original form, as it was initially conceived before being altered at the request of studio executives.

[3] The standard edition DVD included an audio commentary by Van Dormael as a bonus feature, while the collector's edition, available in both DVD and Blu-ray formats, offered additional content such as deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes documentary, a photo gallery, and the film's original score by Pierre Van Dormael, provided on a separate compact disc.

[59] Mr. Nobody opened in 36 theaters in Belgium, debuting in fourth place at the box office and ranking first among new releases, with a per-theater average of $6,331—the third highest after Sherlock Holmes and Invictus.

[63] A writer for RTBF described this as a respectable result for a film shown on only 150 screens, while also observing that the limited release affected its overall box office performance.

[4] The film received a limited release in twelve additional markets outside Belgium and France, including Russia ($615,719), Poland ($334,114), Spain ($322,056), Finland ($217,774), and Germany ($188,088).

[66] An opinion piece in The Numbers argued that the film's limited theatrical release, combined with its simultaneous availability on streaming platforms, failed to capitalize on its potential earnings and ultimately fell short of recovering its €33 million production budget.

"[68] According to the Centre du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel, the box office performance of Mr. Nobody, alongside A Turtle's Tale: Sammy's Adventures, contributed to a 25% rise in attendance for films from Belgium in 2010.

[70][71] According to The Hollywood Reporter, the release on DVD and Blu-ray allowed the film to reach a significantly broader audience compared to its limited theatrical run.

[54][72] Additionally, Digital Trends, a platform specializing in streaming analytics, listed Mr. Nobody among the best science fiction films available on Amazon Prime Video.

[73] According to JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, Mr. Nobody ranked as the third most-watched film in Belgium upon its digital release.

[10] Jennie Punter of The Globe and Mail praised the film, stating: "Van Dormael holds this fractured fairy tale together by giving it an emotional core and delivers two hours of time travel with a playful spirit and at a mostly hyperkinetic pace, sprinkling it with amusing side journeys and sometimes letting a scene unfold at a more natural tempo.

"[78] Ken Eisner from The Georgia Straight summarized the film as "a dazzling feat of philosophical fancy, and it attempts nothing less than the summing up of an entire life, and an epoch or two, with its free-spinning take on recent human history as projected into possible futures.

"[83] Boyd van Hoeij of Variety magazine was more critical, writing: "Though a lot of it is well written and directed and, quite often, funny or poignant, the individual scenes rarely become part of a larger whole."

[86] Xavier Leherpeur from Le Nouvel Observateur described it as "a fiction of sterile ramifications, weighed down by a script the labyrinthine constructions of which poorly conceal the poverty of inspiration".