Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 148 minutes
Release Date: November 7th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director(s): James Vanderbilt
Writer(s): James Vanderbilt / Jack El-Hai (book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist)

All of this started with laws.

Psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) didn’t know why he was summoned to Colonel Andrus (John Slattery) in Nuremberg, but he quickly finds himself excited at the prospect of advancing his career upon discovering the answer. Not only is he tasked with ensuring the Nazi prisoners planned to stand trial in an unprecedented international forum (if approved to commence) wouldn’t commit suicide while awaiting sentencing, but he has unfettered access to Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe).

Writer/director James Vanderbilt (adapting Jack El-Hai’s book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist), wastes no time revealing Kelley to be a smug opportunist at the start of Nuremberg. Whether flirting with a woman on the train (Lydia Peckham) via magic or his grin upon discovering a potential “in” as far as manipulating Göring into believing he was a friend, this is a man driven by ambition. So much so that his attempt to assuage Sgt. Howie Triest’s (Leo Woodall) doubts about Kelley’s “honor” land as more evidence proving he’ll say anything to get his way.

Kelley is therefore the perfect foil for an infamous figure like Göring’s narcissist. We’re talking two sides of the same coin insofar as men seeking power through actions they consider unassailable simply because they are the ones acting. Just as he believes he’s massaging Göring’s ego to unlock vulnerability for a book, Göring actually does unlock the same in him. Because charm only goes so far. Once the former Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe is done testing the doctor’s professional boundaries by delivering letters to his wife, Kelley is genuinely pitying him.

This entire tale is about control. Not just them molding each other into real friends while deniability briefly remains on the table, but also the American government seeking to leverage control over both for the purposes of preventing Germany from a third crack at world domination. There’s Andrus constantly having to remind Kelley of his job and Göring of his prisoner status and Justice Robert H. Jackson (a great Michael Shannon) using his influence to risk everything on finding Göring guilty while wielding Kelley as a spy to do so.

It’s therefore about ego too. Kelley’s to think he can be a monster whisperer. Göring and his confidence that he’ll never see the rope. And Jackson flying blind to literally create the blueprint for how war crimes are still prosecuted today. The real question is whether either of them can find the humility to change course and evolve once they realize they’ve misjudged their circumstances. Because they all do. Kelley for believing a mad man. Göring for even considering he’d survive. And Jackson for assuming he could do it all himself.

While the narrative progression of these characters and their collision may prove a by-the-numbers, old school throwback of an Oscar-bait drama, the energy, humor, and performances ensure it still compels the audience the whole way through. Is two-and-a-half hours long enough to deal with the material’s complexity where Kelley’s psychology is concerned? No. His epiphanies always come so fast that they make him seem like a naive moron with Triest eventually having to guilt him into being honorable after defining what a real hero is.

Malek’s role seems intentionally written to serve the thematic messaging more than the plot’s gravitas. That’s Crowe’s job with a scene-stealing performance we can hope fell to him because no German actors were willing to bring someone as evil as Göring to life. No, Kelley is positioned to deliver the thesis of his lofty goal of discerning what spawns that evil so he can stop it. The answer is, of course, nothing. All men have the capacity to do what the Nazis did and all men are susceptible to willfully ignoring the signs while fostering its proliferation.

Instead of beginning Nuremberg with a quote, Vanderbilt ends with one: R. G. Collingwood’s “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done.” It’s a blatant plea to a world lost in far-right, xenophobic, and dehumanizing politics wherein Trump’s America might somehow be the closet nation to bringing the Third Reich back from the dead. Do we see those parallels in the story itself? Yes. So, it does get a little grating that the film keeps winking to make sure we’re paying attention before bludgeoning us in the final scene.

It’s also why many supporting actors carry weight stopping Kelley and Jackson from falling prey to the hubris they condemn. Woodall gets the show-stopping monologue, but I also liked Richard E. Grant and Wrenn Schmidt as Jackson’s co-counsel and legal secretary. They remind us that the moment was bigger than its players. That, beyond entertainment, we’re also bearing witness. Vanderbilt takes that to heart too by showing the archival concentration camp footage we assume was shown at the 1946 trial. It’s not for the faint of heart. Nor should it be.

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Rami Malek as Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley, Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in NUREMBERG; Image: Scott Garfield. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.