Nuremberg, directed by James Vanderbilt, is a gripping historical drama set in Germany in 1945, immediately after the surrender of the Third Reich. It recounts the Nuremberg trials, during which the Allied powers indicted the highest leaders of the Nazi regime, holding them accountable for the atrocities committed during World War II, particularly the Holocaust. At the center of the story is a young American army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), charged with evaluating the mental state of the main defendants to determine their fitness for trial. His task brings him face to face with the most ruthless figures of the century, most notably Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), a key figure in Hitler's regime.
What begins as a clinical examination quickly turns into an intense and disturbing psychological confrontation between two men who are polar opposites. On one side, the rational and determined Kelley; on the other, the charismatic, lucid, and manipulative Göring. Their dialogue, filled with intense questioning and tense silences, evolves into a full-blown duel that questions the boundaries of justice, madness, and moral responsibility. Leading the prosecution in the trial is the unyielding Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), determined to ensure that the crimes of Nazism are punished fairly and definitively, setting a legal precedent for the world. We witness the play out of the struggle between duty and conscience, between a sense of justice and the need to understand how the unspeakable could have happened.