This one walks you into the cold and then closes the door behind you. Remi gets handed off to Vitalis, the old street performer, and what should feel like abduction slowly turns into the only real family he's ever had: a man too proud to beg, a dog named Capi who works harder than most humans, and a monkey in a little jacket. Then winter happens. The 1980 feature compresses the long TV road into one unbroken march, so the snow sequence and Vitalis's last night land like a hammer instead of a weekly ache. Nobody in this story gets rescued on schedule, which is exactly why the small kindnesses matter so much. It's Hector Malot filtered through late-70s Japanese sincerity, no irony, no cushioning. You will get weirdly protective of a dog.

Remi lives a happy life with his mother in the French countryside. Everything changes when his estranged father returns home desperate for money, reveals that Remi was adopted, and sells him. Heartbroken, Remi ends up in the care of Vitalis, a traveling musician with a troupe of animal performers. Together they travel across the country searching for Remi's real parents, and along the way the boy learns hard lessons about life. Adapted from Hector-Henri Malot's novel Sans Famille, known in English as Nobody's Boy, this 1980 film tells a moving story of friendship, loss and the pursuit of happiness.