‘Nuremberg’ Review: Russell Crowe and Rami Malek Probe the Moral Fog of the Postwar Trials

Movie Review: ‘Nuremberg’

James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg offers a sober, morally uneasy look at the famous postwar trials by centering on a lesser-known figure: U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley. Adapted from Jack El‑Hai’s The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, the film follows Kelley (Rami Malek) as he evaluates high-ranking Nazi prisoners — most notably Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) — while Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) assembles the legal case against the regime’s leaders.

Premise and scope

Rather than a conventional courtroom epic, Vanderbilt’s drama privileges long, intimate exchanges between Kelley and Göring, alongside a procedural account of how the prosecution was built. The movie explores questions about the ethics of victor-run tribunals, the dangers of charisma and self-delusion, and what it means to try monstrous crimes in the language of law.

Performances

Russell Crowe is magnetic as Göring, shifting between theatrical bravado and a more private, manipulative charm; he speaks both German and English, lending texture to the performance. Rami Malek makes Kelley a complicated, often unlikable figure — ambitious, opportunistic and hungry for a book and a legacy. Michael Shannon brings steady moral force as Robert H. Jackson, anchoring the prosecution’s arc.

The supporting ensemble is distinguished: Richard E. Grant plays British prosecutor Sir David Maxwell‑Fyfe; John Slattery is the pragmatic commandant of the prison; Colin Hanks portrays fellow psychiatrist Gustave Gilbert; and Leo Woodall gives one of the film’s most arresting turns as a German‑speaking U.S. officer whose personal history emerges as a late pivot in the narrative.

Strengths and shortfalls

Vanderbilt is adept at atmosphere and moral ambivalence, and the film raises provocative ideas — particularly the unsettling notion that those who committed atrocities did not all fit tidy psychological profiles. Yet the screenplay often fails to generate sustained psychological intensity between its central pair. Many of Kelley and Göring’s exchanges drift into tangents about fathers, greatness and performative tricks rather than delivering the deep, unnerving probe one might expect.

When the movie shifts to courtroom scenes, it sometimes resorts to familiar dramatic beats and a crescendo that feels too triumphant for a story that continually undercuts triumph with the reality of death and complicity. Still, Vanderbilt wisely intersperses archival footage from concentration camps into the trial sequences; those images remain the film’s most harrowing and indispensable moments.

Historical note and themes

Kelley would later publish 22 Cells in Nuremberg, reporting that the men he studied did not appear to be obvious psychopaths but rather essentially ordinary people capable of extraordinary crimes. His warning —

"I am convinced that there is little in America today which could prevent the establishment of a Nazi-like state."

— continues to sting.

Verdict

Nuremberg is a stately, thoughtfully mounted historical drama with strong performances and serious ideas. It sometimes underachieves where it could have been more daring emotionally and dramatically, but the film’s archival evidence and thematic clarity make it important viewing. Running 148 minutes, the Sony Pictures Classics release is rated PG‑13. Rating: two and a half stars out of four.