In the dim, echoing halls of a bombed-out Nuremberg prison, where the ghosts of the Third Reich still whisper through the cracks in the walls, justice wasn’t forged in the roar of artillery or the flash of victory parades. It was hammered out in quiet interrogations, tense courtroom stares, and the uneasy dance between captor and captive. Eighty years after the trials that redefined international law, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg arrives not as a bombastic war epic, but as a taut, introspective thriller that peels back the layers of human monstrosity. Premiering to a thunderous four-minute standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and hitting theaters on November 7 via Sony Pictures Classics, the film has swiftly become 2025’s must-see historical drama. At its core is Russell Crowe’s mesmerizing turn as Hermann Göring, the larger-than-life Nazi Reichsmarschall whose charm masked unspeakable atrocities. Critics are already buzzing about Crowe’s “masterclass in controlled intensity,” a performance that doesn’t explode but simmers, drawing viewers into the moral quagmire of postwar reckoning. This isn’t just a movie about the end of World War II—it’s a mirror held up to our own era, asking how we confront evil when it’s not faceless, but disarmingly human.

For those unfamiliar with the historical pivot point Nuremberg dramatizes, the film transports us to the autumn of 1945, mere months after VE Day. The Allies, reeling from the horrors unearthed in liberated camps, face a dilemma: how to prosecute the architects of genocide without descending into vengeance? Enter U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), a brilliant but idealistic doctor tasked with assessing the mental fitness of 22 top Nazi officials—men like Göring, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher—for the impending International Military Tribunal. Based on Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Vanderbilt’s screenplay weaves this real-life assignment into a psychological cat-and-mouse game, where Kelley’s clinical detachment crumbles under the weight of his subject’s charisma. As the trials unfold in the cavernous Palace of Justice, chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) wages a parallel battle against skepticism from his own ranks and the defendants’ brazen defiance. What emerges is a narrative that intercuts Kelley’s cellblock confessions with courtroom theatrics, revealing not just the crimes, but the fragile line between understanding evil and being seduced by it.

The story opens in the rubble-strewn streets of postwar Germany, where Kelley arrives wide-eyed, his medical bag stocked with Rorschach tests and inkblots meant to pierce the Nazi psyche. His first encounter with Göring sets the tone: the once-portly Luftwaffe commander, now gaunt in captivity, greets him with a disarming smile and a quip in flawless English about American efficiency. Crowe embodies this duality from frame one—pacing his cell like a caged lion, his voice a velvet rumble laced with irony. “We’re not monsters, Doctor,” Göring purrs during their initial session, “just men who dreamed too big.” As weeks turn to months, their dialogues evolve from clinical probes to philosophical duels: Göring regales Kelley with tales of Wagnerian operas and falconry hunts, subtly probing the psychiatrist’s own doubts about blind obedience in the U.S. military. Vanderbilt, drawing from his scriptwriting roots on David Fincher’s Zodiac, builds this rapport with surgical precision—long, unbroken takes in the stark white cells where shadows play across faces like accusations.

Yet Nuremberg refuses to isolate its central duo. The film branches into the trial’s broader machinery, where Jackson’s unyielding pursuit clashes with British prosecutor Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe’s (Richard E. Grant) aristocratic skepticism and the logistical nightmares of housing war criminals amid food shortages. A subplot follows translator Howie Triest (Leo Woodall), a German-Jewish soldier whose fabricated Aryan identity unravels in heartbreaking fashion, forcing him to confront Streicher (Mark O’Brien) on the gallows. These threads converge in the courtroom sequences, shot with a documentary-like grit: no swelling orchestral swells, just the creak of wooden benches and the scratch of translators’ pencils as evidence of gas chambers and mass graves is projected onto screens. The film’s 148-minute runtime flies by in this slow burn, punctuated by bursts of tension—like Göring’s theatrical cross-examination, where he turns Jackson’s questions into a platform for revisionist charm.

Crowe’s performance is the gravitational force that holds it all together, a tour de force that ranks among his finest since Gladiator. At 61, the Oscar winner has shed pounds and mastered conversational German, delivering lines with a Teutonic clip that chills without caricature. Göring isn’t a snarling villain; he’s a bon vivant with a morphine habit, quoting Nietzsche while justifying the Blitz as “necessary poetry.” Crowe’s eyes—those piercing, calculating orbs—betray the calculation beneath the bonhomie, especially in a pivotal scene where he gifts Kelley a cyanide capsule, whispering, “For when the illusions fade.” It’s a masterclass in restraint: no scenery-chewing, just a coiled intensity that makes every shared cigarette feel like a loaded gun. Early buzz positions Crowe as a frontrunner for Best Actor, with TIFF audiences erupting in applause after his final bow. “Russell doesn’t just play Göring,” director Vanderbilt told The Guardian during press. “He inhabits the terror of how someone so affable could orchestrate hell.”

Malek, fresh off Oppenheimer‘s intensity, counters with a portrayal of Kelley that’s equally layered but more vulnerable. His wide-eyed curiosity morphs into obsession, mirroring the real Kelley’s later struggles with his own demons (hinted at through hallucinatory flashes of camp footage). There’s a raw electricity in their scenes together—a chess match where Göring anticipates every move, forcing Kelley to question if sanity is the real casualty. Shannon’s Jackson anchors the legal spine, his gravelly baritone thundering accusations while privately wrestling with the trial’s politicization. “We’re not just trying men,” he growls in a war-room huddle, “we’re inventing justice.” Grant brings wry British bite as Maxwell-Fyfe, clashing with American bravado, while Woodall’s Triest adds poignant emotional depth, his arc culminating in a gallows-side breakdown that elicits gasps. Supporting players like John Slattery as the stoic prison commandant Colonel Andrus and Colin Hanks as psychologist Gustav Gilbert flesh out the ensemble, their interactions humming with the awkward camaraderie of men burdened by history’s ledger.

Vanderbilt’s direction, his sophomore effort after 2015’s Truth, is a revelation in economy and empathy. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) bathes the proceedings in desaturated grays and blues, the bombed-out cityscapes a metaphor for moral devastation. Interiors glow with harsh fluorescents, turning cells into confessional booths where truths emerge like confessions. The score, a sparse piano motif by Alexandre Desplat, underscores the restraint—no bombast for the bombings, just dissonant notes that linger like smoke. Production-wise, the film shot on location in Budapest’s historic sites, standing in for war-torn Bavaria, with practical sets that evoke authenticity over CGI gloss. Vanderbilt spent over a decade developing the script, consulting El-Hai and trial transcripts to balance fact with dramatic license. “I wanted to honor the ‘never again’ without preaching,” he explained in a post-premiere Q&A. The result? A film that’s urgent in 2025, amid rising authoritarian echoes, reminding us that trials aren’t just about punishment—they’re about preserving the soul of civilization.

Reception has been a groundswell of acclaim, tempered by thoughtful critique. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 71% fresh rating from 164 reviews, with the consensus praising Crowe’s “commanding” work amid “handsomely crafted” proceedings. Metacritic’s 61/100 signals “generally favorable,” lauding the “thought-provoking psychological duel” while noting the “measured pacing” occasionally mutes emotional peaks. The Guardian calls it a “compelling new film” with Crowe’s “malevolent charm” stealing scenes, though some fault Malek’s portrayal as “deeply silly” in quieter moments. Audiences, however, are rapt: early screenings report tears and debates spilling into lobbies, with social media ablaze—#NurembergMovie trends praising it as “the WWII film we need now,” and fans meme-ing Crowe’s Göring as “the villain you can’t hate.” Box office whispers suggest a strong indie run, grossing modestly but punching above its $25 million budget through awards chatter. TIFF’s ovation wasn’t hype; it’s a film that demands discussion, from Kelley’s real-life suicide in 1958 (foreshadowed subtly) to Göring’s cyanide-cheating of the noose.

Thematically, Nuremberg grapples with the banality of evil in ways that echo Hannah Arendt’s famous coinage, but through a personal lens. Kelley’s bond with Göring isn’t sympathy—it’s a warning: evil thrives not in isolation, but in the mundane, the relatable. A haunting montage intersperses their talks with archival footage—grainy horrors of Auschwitz that hit like gut punches—underscoring how intellect can rationalize atrocity. The film doesn’t shy from discomfort: Göring’s casual anti-Semitism, Jackson’s internal Army pushback (“Just shoot the bastards”), and Triest’s identity crisis force viewers to confront complicity. In one standout sequence, Kelley administers the Rorschach test to Göring, who sees “angels in flight” where others glimpse butterflies—a reveal that flips their dynamic, exposing the psychiatrist’s growing fascination. It’s these moments that elevate Nuremberg beyond procedural, into a meditation on empathy’s double edge: necessary for healing, perilous for understanding.

As December 2025 dawns, with awards season heating up, Nuremberg feels like a timely salve and scar. Crowe’s return to form—darker, more introspective than his recent action romps—reaffirms his chameleon gifts, while Vanderbilt emerges as a voice for nuanced historicals. This isn’t explosive cinema; it’s the slow burn of testimony, the weight of verdicts etched in stone. In a world still grappling with denialism and division, it whispers a fierce imperative: remember, reckon, repeat. Catch it in theaters before it fades to streaming—history’s lessons, after all, are best absorbed in the dark, surrounded by strangers who gasp as one.