Film Review — Nuremberg

Someone I encountered recently rolled their eyes when I mentioned Nuremberg, asking: “Do we really need another film about the Holocaust?” Given the state of the world these days, I’d say we need films about the Holocaust more urgently than ever. In the case of Nuremberg, the film is at pains to point out the need for all nations to be answerable to international law, including those sitting in judgement during the postwar Nuremberg trials (namely France, Russia, the USA, and the UK). The contemporary resonance gives writer-director James Vanderbilt’s historical drama tremendous dramatic urgency.

Based on The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, by Jack El-Hai, this is set in the aftermath of World War II. Following the discovery of the Nazi death camps, various high-ranking Nazis, including Hitler’s deputy, Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), are captured and made to answer for their crimes in an unprecedented trial presided over by the Allied nations. US Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) serves as the US lead prosecutor, alongside UK prosecutor Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Richard E Grant). It is decided that the trial will take place in Nuremberg, the very city in which antisemitic Third Reich…