Nuremberg: A Psychological Reckoning That Echoes Through the AgesIn the shadow of World War II's devastation, the Nuremberg trials stand as humanity's first bold attempt at international justice—a courtroom where the architects of genocide faced the weight of their crimes. Directed, written, and co-produced by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Truth), the 2025 film Nuremberg doesn't retread the well-worn legal theatrics of Stanley Kramer's 1961 Judgment at Nuremberg. Instead, it burrows into the fractured psyche of those trials, adapting Jack El-Hai's 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025, to a four-minute standing ovation—one of TIFF's longest ever—the film arrived in U.S. theaters via Sony Pictures Classics on November 7, clocking in at a deliberate 148 minutes. Rated PG-13 for its unflinching depictions of atrocities, Nuremberg stars Rami Malek as U.S. Army psychiatrist Lt. Col. Douglas M. Kelley and Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe chief and Hitler's unrepentant No. 2. With a supporting ensemble including Michael Shannon as prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, Leo Woodall as translator Sgt. Howie Triest, Richard E. Grant as British counsel David Maxwell Fyfe, John Slattery as prison commandant Burton C. Andrus, and cameos from Colin Hanks and Wrenn Schmidt, this is prestige cinema at its most introspective. Yet, in a year rife with resurgent authoritarianism—from election-year demagoguery to ongoing global conflicts—Nuremberg feels less like historical reenactment and more like a siren call, urging us to confront the banality of evil before it normalizes again.
The narrative opens amid the rubble of postwar Germany, where Allied forces grapple with what to do with the captured Nazi elite. Supreme Court Justice Jackson (Shannon, all coiled intensity) lobbies a skeptical Truman administration for a tribunal over summary executions, arguing that trials will expose the regime's horrors to the world and deter future tyrants. Meanwhile, Kelley—a brash, cigar-chomping psychiatrist with a flair for showmanship and a hidden vulnerability—is tasked with assessing the defendants' mental fitness for trial.
His Rorschach tests and inkblot sessions become a cat-and-mouse game, particularly with Göring, the portly, morphine-addicted opportunist who surrendered in a pinstripe suit, exuding aristocratic nonchalance. As Kelley probes Göring's mind, the film intercuts between prison cell interrogations, the austere Nuremberg Palace of Justice, and flashbacks to the escalating Nazi machinery: Kristallnacht pogroms, the Wannsee Conference's blueprint for extermination, and the liberation of Dachau's skeletal survivors. Vanderbilt's script weaves in real archival footage of mass graves and emaciated prisoners bulldozed into pits, a gut-punch sequence that silences theaters and forces audiences to reckon with the Holocaust's visceral scale. The stakes escalate as Kelley's obsession blurs professional boundaries; he dines with Göring, debates philosophy over schnapps, and even performs a sleight-of-hand trick that elicits a rare, genuine laugh from the war criminal. This bond isn't romanticized—it's a chilling mirror to how charisma can cloak monstrosity, echoing Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" without naming it.
What elevates Nuremberg beyond procedural drudgery is its dual focus on the psychological and the procedural. Vanderbilt, drawing from El-Hai's meticulous research, humanizes Kelley not as a detached clinician but as a flawed everyman haunted by his own moral blind spots. Malek, shedding his Bohemian Rhapsody mannerisms for a raw, twitchy vulnerability, captures Kelley's arc from cocky interrogator to unraveling witness. His wide-eyed horror during the courtroom screening of camp footage—actual 1945 reels smuggled in by Allied filmmakers—marks a pivot, as if the psychiatrist realizes evil isn't a diagnosable disorder but a seductive ideology anyone can buy into. Crowe, meanwhile, delivers a tour de force as Göring: bloated yet magnetic, his Teutonic growl laced with wry humor and unyielding deflection.
"We were patriots," he purrs to Kelley, spinning the Final Solution as bureaucratic necessity rather than barbarity. Crowe's Göring isn't a cartoon villain; he's the charming uncle who justifies atrocity with folksy anecdotes about eagles and empires, making his cyanide capsule suicide on the eve of hanging all the more infuriatingly defiant. Shannon grounds the legal fray with his trademark gravelly fervor, while Woodall's Triest—a half-German translator grappling with inherited shame—adds poignant emotional ballast, his boyish earnestness cracking under the trials' enormity.
Visually, Nuremberg is a triumph of restraint. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) bathes the bombed-out Bavarian sets in desaturated grays and sepia tones, evoking the moral fog of occupation. The prison cells, lit by harsh fluorescents, contrast the courtroom's vaulted solemnity, where shadows play like accusatory fingers across defendants' faces. Alexandre Desplat's score—sparse piano motifs swelling to orchestral dirges—mirrors the film's emotional ebb, never overplaying the tragedy. Yet, for all its polish, Nuremberg stumbles in pacing and depth. At 148 minutes, the second act sags under expository monologues, recycling courtroom clichés like dramatic objections and teary confessions without Kramer's rhetorical fireworks. Supporting characters like Grant's Maxwell Fyfe and Slattery's Andrus feel sketched, their quips injecting levity that borders on anachronistic Marvel banter. Vanderbilt's contrivances—Kelley's flirtations with a nurse (Schmidt) feel tacked-on—dilute the historical fidelity, prioritizing psychological thriller beats over unflinching geopolitics. The film nods to contemporary parallels (Gaza, January 6) but shies from explicit indictment, a cautiousness that mutes its roar.
Critically, Nuremberg lands a solid 68% on Rotten Tomatoes from 95 reviews, with the consensus praising Crowe's command amid "measured pacing and emotional restraint." Roger Ebert's three-and-a-half stars hail it as "earnest Oscar bait" that underscores fascism's seductive logic, while The Guardian dings its "glib spectacle," likening it to a polished TV movie that soundbites Kelley's insights. Metacritic's 65/100 echoes this divide: immersive for history buffs, uneven for cinephiles craving The Zone of Interest's austerity.
For all its flaws, Nuremberg succeeds as a vital reminder: evil thrives not in monsters, but in men who rationalize it over drinks. Kelley's postwar descent—culminating in his 1958 suicide, mirroring Göring's—haunts like a coda, questioning if understanding atrocity inoculates us or merely desensitizes. In 2025, as echo chambers amplify demagogues and "never again" rings hollow amid fresh horrors, Vanderbilt's film demands we listen. It's not flawless, but it's necessary— a stark dispatch from history's front lines, urging vigilance before the gavel falls silent.
Rating: 3.5/5—commanding, cautionary, and crucially contemporary.
The narrative opens amid the rubble of postwar Germany, where Allied forces grapple with what to do with the captured Nazi elite. Supreme Court Justice Jackson (Shannon, all coiled intensity) lobbies a skeptical Truman administration for a tribunal over summary executions, arguing that trials will expose the regime's horrors to the world and deter future tyrants. Meanwhile, Kelley—a brash, cigar-chomping psychiatrist with a flair for showmanship and a hidden vulnerability—is tasked with assessing the defendants' mental fitness for trial.
His Rorschach tests and inkblot sessions become a cat-and-mouse game, particularly with Göring, the portly, morphine-addicted opportunist who surrendered in a pinstripe suit, exuding aristocratic nonchalance. As Kelley probes Göring's mind, the film intercuts between prison cell interrogations, the austere Nuremberg Palace of Justice, and flashbacks to the escalating Nazi machinery: Kristallnacht pogroms, the Wannsee Conference's blueprint for extermination, and the liberation of Dachau's skeletal survivors. Vanderbilt's script weaves in real archival footage of mass graves and emaciated prisoners bulldozed into pits, a gut-punch sequence that silences theaters and forces audiences to reckon with the Holocaust's visceral scale. The stakes escalate as Kelley's obsession blurs professional boundaries; he dines with Göring, debates philosophy over schnapps, and even performs a sleight-of-hand trick that elicits a rare, genuine laugh from the war criminal. This bond isn't romanticized—it's a chilling mirror to how charisma can cloak monstrosity, echoing Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" without naming it.
What elevates Nuremberg beyond procedural drudgery is its dual focus on the psychological and the procedural. Vanderbilt, drawing from El-Hai's meticulous research, humanizes Kelley not as a detached clinician but as a flawed everyman haunted by his own moral blind spots. Malek, shedding his Bohemian Rhapsody mannerisms for a raw, twitchy vulnerability, captures Kelley's arc from cocky interrogator to unraveling witness. His wide-eyed horror during the courtroom screening of camp footage—actual 1945 reels smuggled in by Allied filmmakers—marks a pivot, as if the psychiatrist realizes evil isn't a diagnosable disorder but a seductive ideology anyone can buy into. Crowe, meanwhile, delivers a tour de force as Göring: bloated yet magnetic, his Teutonic growl laced with wry humor and unyielding deflection.
"We were patriots," he purrs to Kelley, spinning the Final Solution as bureaucratic necessity rather than barbarity. Crowe's Göring isn't a cartoon villain; he's the charming uncle who justifies atrocity with folksy anecdotes about eagles and empires, making his cyanide capsule suicide on the eve of hanging all the more infuriatingly defiant. Shannon grounds the legal fray with his trademark gravelly fervor, while Woodall's Triest—a half-German translator grappling with inherited shame—adds poignant emotional ballast, his boyish earnestness cracking under the trials' enormity.
Visually, Nuremberg is a triumph of restraint. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) bathes the bombed-out Bavarian sets in desaturated grays and sepia tones, evoking the moral fog of occupation. The prison cells, lit by harsh fluorescents, contrast the courtroom's vaulted solemnity, where shadows play like accusatory fingers across defendants' faces. Alexandre Desplat's score—sparse piano motifs swelling to orchestral dirges—mirrors the film's emotional ebb, never overplaying the tragedy. Yet, for all its polish, Nuremberg stumbles in pacing and depth. At 148 minutes, the second act sags under expository monologues, recycling courtroom clichés like dramatic objections and teary confessions without Kramer's rhetorical fireworks. Supporting characters like Grant's Maxwell Fyfe and Slattery's Andrus feel sketched, their quips injecting levity that borders on anachronistic Marvel banter. Vanderbilt's contrivances—Kelley's flirtations with a nurse (Schmidt) feel tacked-on—dilute the historical fidelity, prioritizing psychological thriller beats over unflinching geopolitics. The film nods to contemporary parallels (Gaza, January 6) but shies from explicit indictment, a cautiousness that mutes its roar.
Critically, Nuremberg lands a solid 68% on Rotten Tomatoes from 95 reviews, with the consensus praising Crowe's command amid "measured pacing and emotional restraint." Roger Ebert's three-and-a-half stars hail it as "earnest Oscar bait" that underscores fascism's seductive logic, while The Guardian dings its "glib spectacle," likening it to a polished TV movie that soundbites Kelley's insights. Metacritic's 65/100 echoes this divide: immersive for history buffs, uneven for cinephiles craving The Zone of Interest's austerity.
For all its flaws, Nuremberg succeeds as a vital reminder: evil thrives not in monsters, but in men who rationalize it over drinks. Kelley's postwar descent—culminating in his 1958 suicide, mirroring Göring's—haunts like a coda, questioning if understanding atrocity inoculates us or merely desensitizes. In 2025, as echo chambers amplify demagogues and "never again" rings hollow amid fresh horrors, Vanderbilt's film demands we listen. It's not flawless, but it's necessary— a stark dispatch from history's front lines, urging vigilance before the gavel falls silent.
Rating: 3.5/5—commanding, cautionary, and crucially contemporary.