Nuremberg

A compelling yet cautious portrait of the men behind recent history’s atrocities

The Nuremberg trials of Nazis were a monumental moment in the collective digestion of the horrors perpetrated in World War II, and set the stage for a new international world order, which, while shaky, remains to this day. The events of those trials have been dramatized in the past as courtroom dramas, most famously in the Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), or more recently in the Alec Baldwin TV movie Nuremberg (2000). As the multilateral world order begins to flounder in recent years, a new adaptation has arrived with Nuremberg (2025).

Nuremberg is based on the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, and unlike the previous films depicting these trials, it is more focused on the relationship between the army psychiatrist Douglas Kelly (Rami Malek) and Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) as he builds a psychological profile before the trials. We also get the courtroom showdown, where American Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) sets the stage for modern rules of human rights and war crimes.

Nuremberg is just the second directorial effort from producer James Vanderbilt, after the uneven journalistic drama Truth(2015) a decade earlier. In Nuremberg he brings about a certain nostalgia—not for the moments depicted in the film, but rather for the mid-budget films of the early 2000s, where a starry cast, a juicy historical story, and competent filmmaking would have made it a profitable and Oscar-baity film. As such, the film feels jarringly out of place with modern releases, and sadly is a heavily endangered species. A film geared towards older adults such as this—prime “dad movie” material—is not leaving theaters for streaming, but rather disappearing altogether.

Vanderbilt shows growth in his directing skills since Truth, getting more out of his way and showing competence and a solid handle on his actors, scenes, and weighty moments. He resists the urge to use music in key emotional scenes, letting the acting and simple facts speak for themselves. This is especially moving in the most powerful moment in the film, when the first images of the horrors that occurred in Nazi concentration camps are shown to the world. The real images are presented with a deafening silence, where you are overcome by the capacity for such horrors in human beings.

Yet this is the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt would later define it in the 1960s in a book about another Nazi’s trial in Israel—that of Adolf Eichmann. It is the concept that actual, boring, empathetic human beings such as the Nazi leadership could commit such horrors that is the real cause of worry. Evil isn’t incarnated in a cartoonish and identifiable form, but rather can be wrought by an ordinary person instead. It was this concept that formed the basis of Jonathan Glazer’s masterful The Zone of Interest (2023), where Auschwitz’s horrors are committed in the background as a Nazi commandant’s family goes about their quotidian chores in defiant ignorance. It is this aspect that is explored within Nuremberg, as psychiatrist Kelly begins treating Göring as another general of a losing side, finding him amiable and growing to care for his wife and daughter. This is shattered when he is shown the images of concentration camps, and Kelly is forced to conceive of how the man he has grown to even like is an architect of such horror.

This psychological lens is a timely one to employ, especially as autocratic governments in the West become increasingly comfortable with pushing the boundaries of civil and human rights. Yet Nuremberg’s greatest weakness is that Vanderbilt doesn’t delve too deep into his themes and characters. True to its imitation of mid-budget films of the past, Nuremberg is made more as a transmission of easy facts to a general audience rather than a true artistic exploration of complex subjects. As such, the film remains a surface-level account of its history and characters, dramatizing them as much as is needed to be informative but not challenging viewers.

The result is a film that, while competently crafted, doesn’t permit its story or even its talented cast to dive into something darker and deeper within themselves. One such question posed by Göring in his defense—whether the U.S. will also be tried for the nuclear bombs dropped on the Japanese civilian population—is one I would have been intrigued to see hashed out. Yet, as with many older WWII films, when confronted with murkier aspects, the film reverts to a black-and-white morality that simplifies its subject. As such, while employing a cast full of Oscar winners and character actors, none get to deliver a transformative performance, remaining as Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon to viewers instead of their respective characters (this even with Crowe’s passable German accent).

In the end, Nuremberg is an intriguing new look at the famed post-war trials of Nazi Germany. The film is competently made in every aspect, yet never exceeds or surprises viewers’ expectations. The questions of the normal psychology that these villains of history had are an incredibly intriguing one, yet one which the film shallowly explores, not wanting to overcomplicate its narrative for viewers. As a result, Nuremberg remains the type of Sunday film to watch with your dad or grandfather, and marvel at the scary echoes of current political leaders’ rhetoric.

6.9/10