148 min | PG-13 | November 7, 2025 | Sony Pictures Classics
James Vanderbilt dramatizes the psychological battle between U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley and Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring. Rami Malek and Russell Crowe circle each other with intelligence and menace.
Courtroom dramas about Nazi war crimes are difficult territory. The evil is so absolute that dramatization risks trivializing history. Nuremberg succeeds by focusing tightly on a specific relationship. Douglas Kelley is assigned to evaluate whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial. Hermann Göring is Hitler’s right-hand man, awaiting judgment. The film watches these two men conduct a chess match where the stakes are moral clarity and historical truth.
Rami Malek plays Kelley with intellectual rigor and growing unease. He is a man who believes he can understand evil through psychology. Göring challenges that assumption at every turn. Russell Crowe plays Göring with chilling charisma. He is intelligent, manipulative, and utterly unrepentant. Crowe finds the humanity in a monster without excusing or redeeming him. Michael Shannon plays Justice Robert H. Jackson with moral authority. The supporting cast, Richard E. Grant, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Colin Hanks, all serve the story without demanding spotlight.
James Vanderbilt directed Truth and knows how to build tension through dialogue and performance. The film is mostly conversations in confined spaces. The cinematography captures faces and reactions with precision. The production design recreates 1945 Nuremberg with period accuracy. The script does smart work showing how Kelley’s certainty erodes as Göring demonstrates that evil is not a pathology but a choice.
This is a film about the limits of understanding. Kelley wants to comprehend what made these men commit atrocities. Göring proves that some things cannot and should not be understood, only condemned. The film makes a case that facing evil requires moral clarity rather than psychological analysis.