World War 2 drew to a close in Europe on May 7th, 1945, shortly after Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide. On the other hand, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, the second Nazi in line after Hitler, opted to to stay alive. He is played here by a heavyweight Russell Crowe – the accolade is both metaphorical and literal, with his character being notably overweight. He surrenders after ripping a piece of white fabric from his daughter’s dress and waving it from his car window in Luxemborg.
His family are released, while Goering is taken to prison. But he’s determined to live: he engages in a hardcore exercise routine in order to lose weight and overcome his paracodeine addiction. Meanwhile, the Americans scramble to come up with a credible international tribunal without a precedent in world history. The chosen location is Nuremberg, where Hitler held the Nazi party rallies and conventions, and also were the antisemitic laws of the 1930s were passed. American Justice Jackson (Michael Shannon) is hesitant at first, but he finally agrees to take part as long as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, France and USSR also involved. Psychiatrist Kelley (Rami Malek) is given the difficult task of examining Goering and determining what is it that makes him intrinsically “evil” and different from Americans.
Instead of the image of satan surrounded by towering flames et al, Kelley encounters an extremely intelligent and pleasant man, if also a narcissist with little concern for anything other than his career. Goering tricks him for weeks into believing he did not have a grasp of the language of Shakespeare, only to reveal much later that he was actually fluent in it. The two men bond. They experience a sense of complicity, almost a friendship. However manipulative, Goering still comes across as human. His devotion to his wife and daughter help to emphasise this.
And it is precisely from the mouth of one of the men responsible for the deaths of six million Jews that come some of the most profound moral reflections. What authority does the US have to tutor others when they instantly murdered 150,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? He correctly ascertains that the Land of Free can only claim moral superiority because they won the war. Most crucially, he questions the shrinks: will you still see us as human beings in a few decades? These aren’t just mpty provocations. They serve to deconstruct the notion of “good” and “evil” upon which the United States still builds its geopolitical rhetoric and strategies.
The film also showcases the predicament of other Nuremberg inmates. We see images of Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess (Andreas Pietschmann), who parachuted himself into Scotland in 1941 in the hope of brokering a piece deal with Brits, and the prison suicide of Head of the German Labour Front Robert Ley. The final court scenes of this 150-minute drama show an unrepentant and surprisingly candid Goering argue that the Nazis were democratically elected, that they acted purely in defence of impoverished people, and that “any strong world leader would have done the same in his place”. He nearly convinces Justice Jackson, who eventually sentences him to death by hanging after overwhelming evidence of the concentration and extermination camps surfaces.
Kelley’s findings are dismissed and he nearly becomes arrested. When the authorities question him about the atrocities carried out by the German – the shocking images of the concentration camps are played to those in court and also to film viewers in unforgiving graphic detail -, Kelley is adamant: “this could happen anywhere, even in the United States”. The new oppressors and the willing subverters of democracy of the future “will not wear Nazi uniforms”. This bald assertion is particularly significant at a time when Donald Trump is eroding the democratic foundations of the US and helping to enable yet another genocide (in Gaza). A stark warning that our steadfast promises of “never again” have suddenly vanished into thin air. If we allow that to happen, Hitler-like figures can rise and succeed in any country.
New Zealand actor Russell Crowe plays Goering to near-perfection. He speaks German virtually accent-free, and also English with a convincing German accent. It has been alleged that no AI was used in order to achieve these results. It is safe to say that the thespian is one of the favourites for the Best Actor Academy Award (Ralph Fiennes received a nomination last year for Edward Berger’s Conclave, which also premiered at San Sebastian).
Unlike Christopher Nolan’s toxic Oppenheimer, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg does not seek to portray Americans as virtuous and dignified people always worried for the wellbeing of others. Instead, he reveals that the United States are just as fallible. The terrible fate of Doctor Kelley – revealed at the end of the story – serves to confirm this. The US establishment has little interest in sensible and balanced indictments. The struggle of “good” versus “evil” is a narrative a lot easier to promote. Nuremberg is an honest and profound movie. A breath of a fresh air in an industry more concerned with tub-thumping nationalism, shallow representations and facile demonisations.
Nuremberg was in the Official Competition of the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. In cinemas on Friday, November 14th. On VoD on Friday, January 9th (2026),
