James Vanderbilt’s ‘Nuremberg’ takes on one of the most documented yet still deeply unsettling moments of the twentieth century, about the postwar trials that sought to bring justice to the leaders responsible for a devastating Second World War and its atrocities. Based on Jack El-Hai’s book about Hermann Göring and Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, the film looks at this history through the eyes of a U.S. Army psychiatrist.
Played by Rami Malek, whose task is to determine whether Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe, is mentally fit to stand trial. The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where it received a four-minute standing ovation, and is now premiering in theaters in the USA and Canada by Sony Pictures Classics.
Behind the Courtroom Walls Nuremberg Confronts the Humanity Within Evil
Fundamentally, when we look closely, Nuremberg is not just about a courtroom drama, because it portrays the unsettling conversations that took place behind its walls. Kelley’s interactions with Göring reveal how a man responsible for mass suffering can still appear articulate, persuasive, and disturbingly human. That is where the movie’s greatest discomfort lies, not in the images of war but in the realization that such cruelty was born out of familiar human impulses. Crowe captures Göring’s arrogance and manipulation with confidence, while Malek’s measured restraint mirrors our own attempts to understand how anyone could justify such evil.
The film’s first half, however, struggles with tone. Vanderbilt mixes light exchanges and one-liners into scenes that deal with subjects far too grave to bear levity. Characters joke and banter in a way that makes us uneasy because we know what lies beneath the surface of those moments, the weight of millions of lives lost. Scenes featuring Michael Shannon as Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and John Slattery as Burton C. Andrus, the prison commandant, at times feel out of sync with the somberness of the trials. These tonal shifts risk softening what could have been a consistently tense and focused story about moral reckoning.
But as the movie moves into its second half, it finds its footing. The courtroom scenes take us back to history, as we see the footage of the camps shown to the tribunal, the testimonies of the victims, and the reactions of the accused, bringing back the silence that the film needed all along. It is here that the film begins to breathe in the reality of the moment, allowing the audience to feel what the world must have felt as it first confronted these horrors on screen in 1945. When Göring takes the stand, we watch the confidence drain from him as he is questioned. His humanity becomes visible, but so does his monstrosity.
Critics Split on Nuremberg’s Tone but Agree Rami Malek and Russell Crowe Steal the Show
According to an article by Cinemablend, critics have been divided on how Nuremberg handles this balance. Some call it a classic Oscar-season drama, a film that looks grand, feels prestigious, and features performances that will likely be remembered when awards season arrives. Others note its uneven rhythm and its inability to dive into the psychological depth promised by its premise fully. Still, the performances by Malek and Crowe have been widely praised. Their verbal duels form the heart of the film, each man studying the other, each trying to understand what drives someone to the edge of moral ruin.
We can sense that Vanderbilt wrestled with a difficult question while making the movie. Should we humanize evil to understand it, or does doing so risk giving it sympathy it does not deserve? The film does not answer that question for us, and perhaps that is its point. It reminds us that the men on trial were not monsters from another world; they were people who made choices, terrible choices, within systems they built and justified. The danger lies not in forgetting their crimes but in forgetting that they were capable of being human.
By the end, Nuremberg becomes less about the trial itself and more about the unsettling reflection it holds up to us. We see the blurred line between duty and morality, between understanding and forgiveness. The film closes without offering comfort or closure, leaving us with questions that are difficult to digest. What would we have done if placed in those same rooms, facing those same truths? After all, the Nuremberg trial shows us the choices that define our humanity and how it will continue to do so in the coming years.
