“No One Saw Us Leave” on Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix
Netflix’s new Mexican thriller No One Saw Us Leave is quickly climbing the streamer’s TV charts. The five-part limited series follows a young wife and mother desperately searching for her kidnapped children after they’re taken by her husband, leading to an international chase.
Starring Tessa Ia (Narcos: Mexico), Emiliano Zurita (Dance of the Forty One), and Juan Manuel Bernal (Monarca), the series centers on Valeria Goldberg (Ia), a young mother trapped in an loveless arranged marriage to Leo Saltzman (Zurita), the son of influential businessman Samuel Saltzman (Bernal).
With their marriage breaking apart, Valeria begins an affair with Leo’s brother-in-law, Carlos, prompting the Saltzman family to turn against her. They take away her children and plot to destroy her reputation within the close-knit, affluent Jewish community in Mexico. Following his parents’ advice, Leo takes his and Valeria’s two young children, Tamara and Isaac, to Europe without telling her.
When Valeria discovers her children are missing, she enlists the help of Elías, a former Mossad agent turned private investigator, to track them down. Their search takes them across the globe as her powerful in-laws use their influence to keep her from finding her children.
As you watch the thriller, you might be wondering whether No One Saw Us Leave is based on a true story and what happened to the real-life family that inspired the series. Here’s what to know.
Is No One Saw Us Leave Based On A True Story?
“No One Saw Us Leave” on Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix
Yes, Netflix’s new limited series No One Saw Us Leave is inspired by the real-life kidnapping of Valeria Goldberg’s children, including Tamara Trottner and her brother Isaac, who were taken by their father, Leo Saltzman, according to Netflix’s Tudum.
The show is based on Trottner’s 2020 memoir, Nadie nos vio partir, in which she recounts her experience as a kidnapping victim growing up in an affluent Jewish-Mexican community in 1968. While the book is written from Trottner’s perspective, the Netflix adaptation is told from her mother, Valeria’s, point of view, as she desperately searches for her children.
“I have just turned five,” Trottner states in the first line of her book. “This is the last day of my childhood.”
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – OCTOBER 7: Tamara Trottner poses for photos during the photocall for Netflix’s “Nadie Nos Vio Partir” series at Cinépolis Plaza Carso on October 7, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Medios y Media/Getty Images)
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When Tamara was five, she and her brother were taken by their father, who moved them around the world to keep them away from their mother as revenge after discovering her affair. The series begins in a Jewish community in Mexico before taking viewers to France, South Africa, and finally, to Israel.
“The table is round. Made of mahogany and barely big enough to hold a gray rotary phone,” the description for her book reads. “I look up; at this age, you have to look up to see anyone. My brother and I anxiously listen as our father speaks into the receiver. My gaze shifts from one to the other while I struggle to understand what’s happening. I just turned five. This day will mark the end of my childhood.”
The end credits of No One Saw Us Leave reveal that Isaac and Tamara did not see their father, Leo, again for 20 years. Valeria and Carlos stayed together for the rest of their lives, until Carlos’s death in 1997.
No One Saw Us Leave is streaming on Netflix.
