THE PERIOD DRAMA THAT HAS THE INTERNET IN MELTDOWN
Some movies entertain. Others impress. But once in a rare while, a project arrives that slams into you like a shockwave—and this one does exactly that. Crowe, Malek, and Woodall don’t simply perform… they rip open a buried slice of history, delivering scenes so unfiltered that early audiences say it feels like being dragged into the past with no escape route.
Critics are already calling it near flawless, era-defining, and one of the most emotionally devastating historical films of the decade.
Russell Crowe brings a gravity that presses on your ribs. Rami Malek carries a tension so sharp it feels ready to snap at any second. And Woodall? His sorrow hits with such authenticity it echoes in your own chest.
This isn’t just storytelling—this is a reckoning. A reminder of a chapter the world tried to forget, delivered with honesty, humanity, and a depth that cuts deep.
People are leaving screenings in stunned silence—shaken, overwhelmed, and trying to regroup after what they just witnessed.
It’s the kind of film that doesn’t disappear when the credits roll… it lingers, claws, and refuses to let go.
The Historical Drama Everyone Is Losing Their Minds Over: Nuremberg and the Unforgettable Clash of Conscience and Atrocity
Some films entertain. A few impress. But once in a long while, something comes along that hits with the force of a hammer—and Nuremberg does exactly that. Directed and written by James Vanderbilt, this 2025 historical drama has ignited a firestorm of buzz since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, where it earned a thunderous four-minute standing ovation—one of the longest in the festival’s storied history. Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Leo Woodall don’t just act… they tear through a forgotten chapter of history with performances so raw that early viewers say it feels like being pulled into the past with no way out. Critics are already calling it near-perfect, generation-defining, and one of the most emotionally powerful historical dramas in years. Crowe delivers a weight that sits heavy on your chest. Malek fills every moment with controlled intensity that feels seconds from breaking. And Woodall? His heartbreak is so real you can almost feel it in your own bones. This story drags you into a part of history the world tried to bury, revealing truths that are honest, human, and deeply affecting. Viewers are walking out silent—shaken, moved, and trying to make sense of what they just experienced. It’s the kind of film that doesn’t fade when the screen goes black… it stays with you.
Released in U.S. theaters on November 7, 2025, by Sony Pictures Classics, Nuremberg has swiftly climbed to a 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with its consensus praising it as “a handsomely crafted historical drama” driven by commanding turns from its leads. But the numbers only tell part of the story. Social media is ablaze with reactions: “Phenomenal and important—should be shown in schools,” one viewer tweeted, while another declared it “the kind of movie you get shown in a high school history class. It’s gripping, looks great and feels like a product of a much different era.” As the film expands to the UK on November 14, audiences worldwide are grappling with its unflinching portrayal of the Nuremberg Trials—not just as a courtroom spectacle, but as a profound psychological duel between evil and empathy. In an era where authoritarian echoes reverberate through global politics, Nuremberg feels bracingly relevant, a stark reminder that history’s monsters aren’t caricatures; they’re chillingly human.
At its core, Nuremberg is adapted from Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, which chronicles the real-life assignment of U.S. Army psychiatrist Captain Douglas M. Kelley to assess the mental fitness of Nazi war criminals detained at Nuremberg Palace of Justice in 1945. Fresh off World War II’s horrors, the Allies faced a unprecedented challenge: how to prosecute men like Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s right-hand architect of the Holocaust, without descending into vengeance? Kelley, an ambitious clinician with dreams of literary fame, was thrust into the cells of monsters, armed only with inkblot tests, interviews, and his own unraveling psyche. The film doesn’t just recount the trials’ procedural drama; it delves into the intimate, often horrifying interrogations that revealed the banal underpinnings of genocide. As Kelley probes Göring’s charisma and cunning, he confronts not just Nazi ideology, but the fragility of his own moral compass—and the haunting question: How do ordinary men commit extraordinary evil?
Vanderbilt, best known for high-octane scripts like Zodiac and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, shifts gears here to a more introspective thriller, blending psychological tension with historical fidelity. The narrative unfolds in the shadow of bombed-out Nuremberg, where Allied forces improvise justice amid the rubble. Archival black-and-white footage—grainy reels of concentration camp liberations—intercuts the color-drenched present, a stylistic choice that some critics call “gimmicky” but others hail as visceral punctuation. These moments aren’t exploitative; they’re gut-wrenching, forcing viewers to confront the “Harrowing scenes of the Final Solution” that left TIFF audiences in stunned silence, “hearing a pin drop.” The script weaves in the broader trial ensemble—prosecutors debating strategy, translators decoding testimonies—but keeps the focus on Kelley’s corridor of horrors, where intellect clashes with infamy.
No discussion of Nuremberg is complete without its trio of revelatory performances, starting with Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring. The Oscar winner (Gladiator) embodies the Luftwaffe chief with a magnetic menace that’s equal parts vanity and vulnerability. Gone is the scenery-chewing bombast of Crowe’s action-hero past; here, he channels Göring’s aristocratic swagger—the morphine-addicted playboy who orchestrated the Blitz and the Final Solution with the casualness of a dinner party. In close-ups captured by cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (Pirates of the Caribbean), Crowe’s eyes flicker from self-assured gleam to fleeting regret, making the Nazi leader’s charisma terrifyingly relatable. “He’s magnetic and scary, without overly chewing the scenery,” raves USA Today, positioning Crowe as a crash candidate for Best Actor. Early viewers echo this: “Russell Crowe’s most compelling work in a long time,” one gushed, while another predicted “Academy Award-winning performances.” Crowe’s preparation was methodical; he shed weight and studied Göring’s mannerisms, even drawing on the Nazi’s love of opera to infuse scenes with operatic flair. Off-set, Malek revealed Crowe as a “raconteur,” regaling the Budapest crew with tales during the film’s February-May 2025 shoot. Yet, it’s in the quiet cellblock confrontations where Crowe truly haunts, his Göring whispering justifications that linger like smoke from a crematorium.
Opposite him, Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) delivers a career-best as Douglas Kelley, the everyman psychiatrist whose ambition curdles into crisis. Malek’s signature intensity—those wide, haunted eyes and staccato delivery—finds perfect pitch in a man out of his depth. Kelley arrives cocky, Rorschach cards in hand, envisioning a bestseller on “the Nazi mind.” But as he unravels Göring’s psyche, his own frays: nightmares of gas chambers, ethical dilemmas over suicide watches, and a growing dread that evil isn’t pathological—it’s chosen. Critics praise Malek’s “controlled intensity,” though some note occasional mismatches between words and expressions. For audiences, it’s transformative: “Rami Malek worked better for me,” one IMDb user confessed, while The Hollywood Reporter calls it “among [his] best performances,” captured in “tight, constantly probing close-ups.” Malek’s Kelley isn’t a hero; he’s a mirror, reflecting our collective struggle to process atrocity. In a pivotal scene, as he debates mercy with prison commandant John Slattery’s stoic figure, Malek’s voice cracks—raw, seconds from breaking—leaving theaters in hushed awe.
Then there’s Leo Woodall, the breakout of The White Lotus Season 2 and One Day, whose portrayal of Sgt. Howard “Howie” Triest steals hearts and headlines. As Kelley’s young translator—a German-Jewish émigré with a buried Holocaust connection—Woodall brings a fresh-faced fragility that grounds the film’s intellectual heft. His reveal, a tear-jerking monologue tying personal loss to global genocide, is USA Today‘s “standout,” an “affecting” gut-punch that motivates Kelley’s moral pivot. Woodall’s heartbreak feels bone-deep, his wide eyes pooling with unspoken grief; it’s the emotional core that elevates Nuremberg beyond procedural drama. “Attention-getting in a smaller role,” per IMDb, but for many, it’s the film’s soul. Submitted for Supporting Actor alongside heavyweights like Michael Shannon (as prosecutor Robert H. Jackson) and Richard E. Grant (as British counsel David Maxwell-Fyfe), Woodall’s work signals his ascent.
The supporting ensemble is a murderers’ row: Shannon’s steadfast gravitas, Slattery’s clipped authority, Colin Hanks as rival psychologist Gustave Gilbert, and cameos from Mark O’Brien and Wrenn Schmidt add layers to the trial’s machinery. Vanderbilt’s direction—taut, unflashy—lets these performances breathe, though some fault the climax’s “standard courtroom cliches” and a “hollow ‘we got him’ moment.” Yet, that’s minor amid the film’s potency. The Hollywood Reporter deems it “bracingly relevant,” a “major work” for our divided age, where denialism creeps back in. As one reviewer put it, it’s “the most devastating historical drama of the decade,” a “brutal, soul-shaking masterpiece” mandatory for generations.
Nuremberg arrives not in a vacuum but amid a renaissance of WWII tales—Oppenheimer‘s atomic dread, The Zone of Interest‘s quiet complicity—yet it carves its niche by humanizing the interrogators as much as the interrogated. Kelley’s real-life suicide in 1958, haunted by his subjects, underscores the toll; the film hints at this shadow without cheap tragedy. It’s a story of buried truths: Göring’s cyanide capsule evasion, the Allies’ improvised gallows, the inkblots that exposed (or hid) fractured souls. In revealing these, Nuremberg doesn’t glorify justice; it mourns its inadequacy, echoing El-Hai’s thesis that psychiatry couldn’t “cure” fascism—only courts could contain it.
The frenzy is palpable. TIFF’s ovation set the tone; post-release, theaters report packed houses and post-screening debates. Online, #NurembergMovie trends with fan art of Crowe’s Göring and think pieces on its timeliness. “Awards written all over it,” fans chorus, with Crowe and Malek dueling for Best Actor nods. Detractors, like The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw, decry Kelley’s “ridiculous cartoon” arc and Malek’s “deeply silly” tics, rating it 2/5. But even they concede the cast’s valor. LA Times‘ Katie Walsh calls it “well-intentioned and elucidating despite some missteps.”
Ultimately, Nuremberg transcends critique. It’s a freight train of empathy crashing into denial, leaving you breathless in the dark. As one viewer summarized: “You walk out silent—shaken, moved, trying to make sense.” In a world forgetting its ghosts, this film resurrects them—not to haunt, but to heal. See it. Let it stay with you. Because some histories demand we remember, lest we repeat.
