The film had its world premiere in the Gala Presentations section of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025,[4] where it received a four-minute standing ovation, one of TIFF's longest standing ovations ever.[5] It was released theatrically in the United States by Sony Pictures Classics on November 7, 2025. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for Crowe's portrayal of Göring.
Plot
Following the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany during World War II, United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson is told about the arrest of ReichsmarshallHermann Göring and plans for an International Military Tribunal to charge the surviving top Nazi leaders with war crimes. The Allies must establish proceedings without precedent and charge individuals for enormous crimes that lack any written foundation. Encouraged by his secretary, Elsie Douglas, on whom he relies for advice, Jackson agrees to serve as the lead American prosecutor. He takes a leave of absence from the Supreme Court and meets Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, the British deputy prosecutor. The lead British prosecutor, not portrayed in the film, is Sir Hartley Shawcross.
Douglas Kelley, a U.S. Army psychiatrist serving in Germany, arrives for a new assignment and is met by Sergeant Howie Triest, his aide and German-English interpreter. Kelley learns from Colonel Andrus he will serve as prison psychiatrist for the Nazi leaders, a task he feels would make great material for a book that can leave a lasting impression on the world. Kelley appraises Göring as intelligent, charismatic, imaginative, and highly narcissistic, noting his steadfast admiration of Adolf Hitler. During their initial meetings, Göring admits he established concentration camps as a means of forced labor, but blames Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, both then deceased, for their evolution into extermination camps. Göring confides to Kelley that he believes he will somehow escape execution by the Allies.
Other indicted war criminals include naval commander Karl Dönitz, propagandist Julius Streicher, and labor leader Robert Ley, the latter of whom suffers a nervous breakdown and, despite Andrus's efforts to prevent suicides, succeeds in strangling himself in his cell. As the trial draws near, Kelley attempts to communicate with Hitler's former deputy Rudolf Hess, whom he believes is feigning amnesia, and persuades Göring to assist in exchange for delivering letters to and from Göring's wife Emmy and daughter Edda. Kelley develops a rapport with the Göring family during visits. He also develops a friendship with Lila, a journalist for The Boston Globe, in his off-hours.
Andrus decides Kelley's objectivity has been compromised and brings in psychologist Gustave Gilbert to provide a second opinion. Göring reveals to Kelley that he plans to deliver a statement to the tribunal when called upon to enter his plea. Kelley relays this to Jackson, who realizes that Göring intends to use the trial as a platform to defend Nazism and delegitimize the Allied occupation of Germany. Kelley learns that Emmy has been taken into custody for alleged involvement in Göring's art thefts, while Edda has been handed over to a convent. On the first day of trial, the judges silence Göring's attempt to address the court. A graphic documentary film of Nazi concentration camps is screened as evidence for the prosecution; a shaken Kelley angrily confronts Göring in his cell afterwards. Göring coldly deflects responsibility, going so far as to suggest the film was staged and compares the concentration camps to alleged atrocities by the Allies. After Lila publishes crucial, confidential information that Kelley drunkenly revealed to her, Andrus dismisses Kelley from his position and directs him to leave. Andrus also discloses that Emmy and Edda were released. At the train station, Triest reveals to Kelley that he was born in Germany to Jewish parents, who later perished at the hands of the Nazis, while his younger sister escaped to Switzerland. After Triest warns of the dangers of impassivity towards evil, Kelley decides to surrender all his private notes on Göring to Jackson.
Jackson, who has not prosecuted a case in years, subjects Göring to an ineffective examination in court. Göring gives drawn-out answers and denies any knowledge of atrocities. He claims his decree authorizing the Final Solution has been mistranslated, and should be read as a "complete solution" to emigrate the Jews out of Germany, rather than extermination. After Jackson's increasing ire towards Göring prompts a stern rebuke by the judges, Maxwell Fyfe takes over the cross-examination of Göring. Fyfe successfully goads Göring into professing his continued loyalty to Hitler. The tribunal finds Göring guilty of war crimes and sentences him with several of the other accused Nazis to death by hanging.
On the eve of his execution, Göring commits suicide by swallowing cyanide. Andrus orders the execution of the remaining condemned Nazis to proceed, beginning with Streicher, who suffers a nervous breakdown on being informed. Triest, who had pretended to befriend Streicher with the intention of revealing his Jewish heritage right before his execution, is instead forced to gently persuade him to the gallows, where Streicher spends his final moments yelling anti-Semitic slurs at the witnesses and predicting that the United States will someday be conquered by the Soviet Union. Kelley later publishes a book regarding his experiences in Nuremberg, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, which he has trouble promoting. End titles reveal that the book sold poorly. Plagued by alcoholism and increasingly distraught over the possibility of another regime like Nazi Germany emerging in the future, Kelley took his own life with a cyanide capsule in 1958. Triest managed to bring his sister home to America, while the Allies' efforts to prosecute Göring and the others later formed the foundation for international prosecution of war crimes.
In June 2025, Sony Pictures Classics acquired North American and worldwide airline rights to the film and scheduled a release for it in the U.S. on November 7, 2025.[11] The film's early special release with a Q-and-A session with Vanderbilt and Crowe was on October 27, 2025.[12] At the premiere in Toronto, it received a four-minute standing ovation, one of TIFF's longest standing ovations ever.[13]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of 164 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Driven by a commanding performance from Russell Crowe, Nuremberg is a handsomely crafted historical drama, but its measured pacing and emotional restraint keep it from fully realizing the complexity of its subject."[14]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[15]
Writing for the Daily Beast, Nick Schrager found the film to be flawed in spite of the star actors in the film and pointed out director Vanderbilt's flaws by stating: "Nuremberg is constructed like an old-fashioned awards-bait period piece, complete with trailer-ready lines of dialogue that put a neat-and-tidy button on scenes. There’s a mechanical quality to Vanderbilt’s plotting that negates the unexpected and enlightening."[16]
In a review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw rated the film 2/5, noting: "All of these actors do their best, but the figure of Kelley himself is a ridiculous cartoon."[17] He cited Rami Malek's perfomance as "deeply silly." Katie Walsh of The LA Times described the film as "well-intentioned and elucidating despite some missteps."[18]
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