A multiresolution time-domain (MRTD) technique is proposed and applied to the analysis of arbitrarily shaped photonic devices. The suggested method implements the multiresolution analysis in the context of method-of-moments for the solution of Maxwell's equations. To improve the capabilities of the proposed method, the uniaxial perfectly matched layers absorber for the MRTD is rigorously incorporated and better performance is reported over the conventional finite-difference time-domain. Various numerical examples demonstrate the stability and numerical precision of the suggested MRTD method for both linear and nonlinear applications. Moreover, the application of the suggested MRTD scheme for the design of a photonic crystal-based optical wavelength filter and for the analysis of a frequency converter is presented.