“Nuremberg” Movie: Rami Malek Faces Russell Crowe in a Chilling Battle of Wills

The Nuremberg movie is now in theaters, offering a gripping, psychologically charged look at the aftermath of World War II through a face-off between two Oscar winners. At its core is Rami Malek as U.S. Army psychiatrist Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, tasked with evaluating Nazi leaders ahead of the historic trials — and drawn into a perilous mind game with Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe. The result is a courtroom-adjacent drama that favors tense interviews and ethical knots over battlefield spectacle.

What is “Nuremberg” about?

Set in 1945–46, Nuremberg follows Dr. Kelley as he assesses the mental fitness of 22 high-ranking Nazi defendants. His mandate is clinical; the implications are seismic. As Kelley interviews Göring and others, he confronts a haunting question: if these architects of atrocity exhibit no clear psychiatric disorders, what does that say about ordinary human capacity for evil? The movie frames their exchanges as a duel — intellect versus manipulation, empathy versus monstrous rationalization — while the larger legal machinery prepares to remake international justice.

Release date, runtime, rating

• U.S. theatrical release: November 7, 2025

• Runtime: 148 minutes

• Rating: PG-13 for thematic material and disturbing images

Distribution is currently theatrical only; digital and streaming windows will follow after the cinema run.

Cast and creative team

• Rami Malek — Dr. Douglas M. Kelley

• Russell Crowe — Hermann Göring

• Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, John Slattery, Leo Woodall, Colin Hanks, Wrenn Schmidt, Lydia Peckham

Written and directed by James Vanderbilt, the film adapts Jack El-Hai’s non-fiction account of Kelley’s work and the trove of interviews, notes, and observations he left behind.

“Nuremberg” review: performances and perspective

The Nuremberg movie succeeds first as an actors’ arena. Malek crafts Kelley as brilliant, principled, and increasingly rattled by the disquieting normalcy he observes. His stillness becomes a barometer: each tiny shift in posture or breath marks a breakthrough or a loss of ground. Crowe’s Göring, meanwhile, is charismatic, calculating, and disturbingly entertaining — a performance that clarifies why the defendant commanded attention in the courtroom and why he remained so dangerous in conversation.

Around them, the ensemble sharpens the film’s texture. Michael Shannon’s presence carries coiled intensity; Richard E. Grant and John Slattery lend crisp definition to the legal and diplomatic stakes. Vanderbilt’s staging keeps the focus on language and leverage: interrogation rooms, holding cells, and drab offices where a war’s moral accounting plays out sentence by sentence.

How “Nuremberg” differs from other WWII dramas

Rather than revisiting battlefront heroics, Nuremberg zeroes in on the invention of accountability — how the world learned to try crimes so vast no court had imagined them. The movie’s best sequences turn on ideas: responsibility without madness, bureaucracy as a weapon, and the seduction of absolution through euphemism. By foregrounding Kelley’s psychiatric lens, the film reframes familiar history as a study in ordinary minds committing extraordinary harm.

Talking points for post-movie debate

• Sanity vs. culpability: If the defendants are “sane,” does that make their choices more terrifying — and more instructive?

• The performance of remorse: Can contrition be trusted when the stakes are life and death?

• The doctor’s burden: Where is the ethical line for experts whose findings can tilt the scales of justice?

Is “Nuremberg” worth seeing?

Yes — especially if you’re drawn to historical dramas that favor moral inquiry over spectacle. Nuremberg is methodical and talk-driven by design, but it rarely feels inert. The interplay between Rami Malek and Russell Crowe provides continuous voltage, while the film’s focus on systems — legal, medical, bureaucratic — brings fresh relevance. At 148 minutes, the pacing occasionally lingers, yet the accumulation of detail pays off with a sobering clarity about how institutions confront (or fail to confront) evil.

Quick FAQ: “Nuremberg” movie

• Is it streaming? Not yet. It’s playing exclusively in theaters; home release will follow later.

• Is it connected to the 2000 miniseries? No — this is a new feature film with a different creative team and perspective.

• Why Rami Malek’s role matters: Kelley’s interviews and notes remain a crucial, sometimes overlooked window into the psychology of the defendants and the early language of human-rights law.

The Nuremberg movie is a thoughtful, unsettling drama that swaps spectacle for high-stakes conversation — anchored by two magnetic performances and a perspective that feels uncomfortably current.