‘Nuremberg’ Review: Russell Crowe Steals the Show in This Old-School WWII Drama

For a time, especially around World War II, many films that competed for — or aspired to compete for — the Oscars had a certain Nuremberg quality to them: respectable, serious, formal dramas, often a bit grandiloquent, built on clear moral oppositions and packaged in an accessible, entertaining format. Given that tradition, it makes sense that James Vanderbilt’s film, set between 1945 and 1946, would lean into that tone, even embrace it. After all, a movie about the most famous trial in history — the one held after the war against the surviving Nazi leadership — seems tailor-made for that kind of treatment. Or at least, it should be.

You could say that Nuremberg pulls it off, but that doesn’t make it a great film. Within its somewhat retro framework, it works as a reasonably effective look at the moment when the horrors of the Holocaust became undeniable to the world. At the same time, it struggles to break free from the academic mold it so comfortably inhabits. In a cinematic landscape that has already absorbed the formal and thematic complexity of films like The Zone of Interest, this one can’t help but feel limited in both its dramatic ambitions and its visual approach. Still, within those limits, it mostly holds together, avoiding many of the pitfalls that plague films like Life Is Beautiful and similar attempts.

Nuremberg sets out to explore evil, but not through the lens used by Jonathan Glazer’s film — grounded in the idea of a “banal,” routine monstrosity — but rather through a more traditional psychological framework. The movie could just as easily be titled Göring’s Psychiatrist, since its core is the relationship between the Nazi leader — Hitler’s designated successor and the most powerful of the surviving officials — and the psychiatrist assigned to him by the Allies while he awaits trial. The goal is twofold: prevent him from committing suicide and assess his mental state ahead of the proceedings. Unofficially, it’s also clear that they want someone who can get close enough to identify his weaknesses.

Based on the nonfiction book by Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Vanderbilt’s second feature as a director opens just before Germany’s surrender, with Hermann Göring (a highly expressive Russell Crowe) flamboyantly presenting himself to a group of American soldiers, ready — in his own peculiar, grandiose way — to be arrested alongside his family. Unlike Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, or Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsmarschall still imagined a political solution, perhaps even saw himself as a potential successor. His defense — the one he would later attempt to impose at trial — was that he had nothing to do with the crimes and was entirely unaware of the concentration camps and the mass murder of millions of Jews.

Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek, still best known as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody) is the psychiatrist sent to Luxembourg, where Göring and 21 other Nazi officials are being held. His task is to determine whether they shared a psychiatric condition that led them to commit unspeakable atrocities, or whether their actions were the result of ideology, obedience, ambition, and circumstance. At the same time, Kelley hopes to write a book about his findings. Meanwhile, Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) is trying to persuade Harry S. Truman to move forward with the trial itself — something that, at that point, had yet to be fully agreed upon by the Allied powers. The legal terrain was murky: there was no established international framework to prosecute crimes against humanity or crimes against peace, and there were real concerns that a trial might humanize the defendants or cast doubt on their individual responsibility.

The film centers on the relationship between Kelley and Göring, often mediated by a soldier acting as translator (Leo Woodall), whose own connection to Germany and Nazism becomes increasingly relevant. At heart, it’s a psychological duel: the narcissistic, highly intelligent Göring attempts to dominate Kelley, to charm him, to draw him in through personal confidences, while the psychiatrist carefully feeds his ego in order to extract information. This clash of strong personalities — Kelley’s own ego will cause problems along the way — drives a narrative that unfolds alongside the growing global attention surrounding the trial, the stories of other imprisoned Nazi leaders, and eventually the proceedings themselves.

Thematically, the film taps into a debate that was very much alive at the time: whether the accused shared some identifiable psychiatric trait, or whether they were closer to what would later be described as the “banality of evil” — the idea that monstrous acts don’t require monstrous minds. One key detail helps frame this discussion: at the time, the full extent of the Holocaust was not yet widely understood. The existence of concentration camps and the systematic extermination known as the “Final Solution” were still being debated. Add to that Göring’s particular personality — not a faceless bureaucrat, but a flamboyant, charismatic figure with a taste for power and spectacle — and the prosecution faced an additional challenge. He had the tools to defend himself, and to manipulate those trying to judge him.

Richard E. Grant, John Slattery, Andreas Pietschmann, and Colin Hanks round out the cast in largely functional roles — Grant gets a strong scene toward the end, but is otherwise underused as the British representative of the prosecution. More than anything, Nuremberg serves as a reminder of Crowe’s enduring screen presence. In recent years, he’s been largely relegated to action films and supporting roles, but here he’s given space to build a full character: overweight, intense, sly, theatrical — and sporting a delightfully over-the-top German accent. Decades ago, this might have earned him an Oscar nomination, and it highlights the strange seductive power of figures like Göring and the ideologies they represent. Malek, meanwhile, remains something of a take-it-or-leave-it presence, delivering a performance that is at times overwrought and eccentric, but ultimately fits within the film’s more traditional framework — and the character’s own traits. Shannon is the only one who stays relatively grounded, anchoring the acting showdown between the other two.

Traditional and somewhat solemn, Nuremberg never quite moves beyond the surface. It raises complex questions but struggles to fully engage with their ambiguity, depth, or contemporary relevance. Toward the end, Vanderbilt attempts to draw a line between those dark years and current tendencies toward authoritarianism and ideological fanaticism, but the connection feels somewhat simplistic and underdeveloped. In that sense, the film as a whole works as a clear, direct — and not particularly subtle — reminder: monsters don’t exist. They are human beings, and they are among us.