It’s May 7, 1945. It’s the last day of war in Europe. Entire cities have been decimated. Millions have been killed and millions more have been displaced. That is the setting of the psychological thriller, “Nuremberg” (2025), written, directed and produced by James Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt is no stranger to the thriller genre as the writer of “Zodiac” (2007), despite being best known for his action scripts “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012) and “Independence Day: Resurgence” (2016).
Unfortunately, “Nuremberg” seems to blend the genres of action and thriller unintentionally, opening it to historical inaccuracies and being borderline offensive.
The film begins with German Nazi politician and military leader, Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), surrendering to the Allied troops in Austria.
The film then jumps to Washington D.C., where the audience is introduced to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) and his plans to charge top Nazi leaders with war crimes on the world stage.
Despite it being recognized as a crazy idea, the film pushes forward and introduces the audience to its main character, Dr. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), the U.S. Army psychiatrist tasked with examining the 22 high-ranking Nazi officials set to be put on trial. It’s here where audiences also meet Sergeant Howie Triest (Leo Woodall), who serves as the German-English translator for Kelley throughout the film.
Following Kelley and Göring’s first meeting, a rapid sequence introduces some of the other Nazi officials that will also be facing trial, including chief of the German labor front, Dr. Robert Ley (Tom Keune), the German Navy’s commander-in-chief, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (Peter Jordan) and Adolf Hitler’s director of propaganda, Julius Streicher (Dieter Riesle).
Within this sequence, real footage from World War II makes its first appearance in the film.
Kelley soon comes up with the idea to write a book about the psychology of evil and what makes Germans different from the rest of the world.
In the sub-plot of the film, Justice Jackson continues to try and convince leaders to hold a trial, and once he successfully does so, the prisoners are moved from Mondorf, Luxembourg, to Nuremberg, Germany, where they are to remain until the courthouse that was destroyed during the war is rebuilt.
Kelley continues his evaluation of the 22 men, and in order to gain leverage on Göring, he brings in Rudolph Hess (Andreas Pietschmann) with the promise that if Göring can disprove Hess’s amnesia, he will deliver letters to Göring’s wife and daughter.
Over the next few months, Kelley builds a relationship with Göring and his family that makes Kelley start to question his own morality.
The trials eventually begin, and the prosecution presents a graphic film depicting real footage of the conditions of the concentration camps for the courtroom.
Later, Kelley confronts Göring in his cell about the content of the film, which results in the end of their relationship.
Shortly afterwards, Kelley is dismissed from his position following the publication of confidential information that he disclosed to a female journalist while drunk.
Ready to head back home, Triest meets Kelley at the train station and reveals to him that he is German, born to Jewish parents, and was forced to flee to America alone as a result of the Third Reich. Realizing that he has a responsibility to act against evil, Kelley returns and hands over his notes on Göring to Justice Jackson.
The court found that Göring and several others were guilty of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, resulting in the sentencing of several of them to death by hanging.
The same night that he was to be executed, Göring committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule in his cell.
The final text of the film reveals that after a long battle with depression, Kelley committed suicide using the same method as Göring. These title cards also reveal that Triest was able to reunite with his sister following the trials and that due to the efforts at Nuremberg, the case laws established have become the basis for all modern war crime trials.
Beyond this film’s lack of trust in its audience and their attention span, which can be identified through the script’s issue of telling rather than showing and its inappropriate use of comedic relief; its over-dramatization of certain aspects of the trials and Kelley’s story makes the film appear like a failed action movie.
Throughout this film, historical context is given alongside character introductions that are both comedic and cartoonishly villainous. This, combined with the real footage from WWII and the concentration camps, is frankly distasteful and distracting to the average viewer.
Despite the several issues that this film has regarding its dialogue and sequencing, it delves into the issue of morality and attempts to make the point that there is no such thing as inherent evil and that all of us are capable of both good and bad.
