If you are looking for something to watch this evening, Russell Crowe and Rami Malek may just have an answer for you.
Nuremberg, the psychological WWII thriller that quietly became one of 2025’s most talked-about films, is now streaming on Netflix as of today, March 7, 2026.
Critics gave it a respectable 72% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences gave it a 95%. That gap tells you everything you need to know.
The film is based on the 2013 nonfiction book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, and it tells a true story that most people have never heard.
Rami Malek plays Dr. Douglas Kelley, a U.S. Army psychiatrist assigned to evaluate 22 high-ranking Nazi prisoners, including Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, before they stand trial for war crimes.
What starts as a clinical assignment turns into something far more disturbing, as Kelley finds himself locked in a psychological duel with a man who is charming, calculating, and convinced he will somehow walk free.
Russell Crowe plays Göring. By nearly all accounts, it is one of the best performances of his career.
The True Story Behind Nuremberg
The real Dr. Douglas Kelley was assigned to the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg in 1945, and what he found shook him for the rest of his life.
The men he evaluated, among the most responsible for the Holocaust and the deaths of tens of millions of people, were not insane.
They were, for the most part, rational human beings who had made monstrous choices.
Kelley documented his experience in a 1947 book titled 22 Cells in Nuremberg.
Göring himself was one of the most complex figures at the trials. A WWI flying ace who had ballooned to nearly 300 pounds by the time of his capture, he remained defiant, charismatic, and manipulative until the end.
He was sentenced to death by hanging, only escaping the sentence by swallowing a cyanide capsule the night before his execution.
Director James Vanderbilt incorporated dialogue drawn directly from actual trial transcripts and included six minutes of real-life footage from Nazi death camps.
He spent 13 years getting the film made, crediting Crowe for staying committed throughout the entire development process. Crowe himself said when the role came his way, he did not think twice.
Who Is In The Nuremburg Cast?
Alongside Crowe and Malek, the film boasts one of the most stacked supporting casts of the year.
Michael Shannon plays Robert H. Jackson, the relentless U.S. Chief Prosecutor tasked with building the case that would define international law forever.
Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) plays Sergeant Howie Triest. John Slattery (Mad Men) plays Colonel Burton C. Andrus. Colin Hanks plays Gustave Gilbert. Richard E. Grant (Saltburn) also appears.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025, where it received a four-minute standing ovation, one of TIFF’s longest ever.
It opened in theaters November 7, 2025 via Sony Pictures Classics and grossed over $45 million at the global box office, doing particularly well in France and Germany.
Why Audiences Love Nuremburg More Than Critics Did
The 72%/95% split on Rotten Tomatoes is the film’s most interesting statistic.
Critics found the pacing uneven and noted some historical liberties, but audiences have responded to the sheer weight of what it puts on screen.
Variety called it a “hidden gem compared to several of its awards season competitors.”
Crowe’s Göring is described by reviewers as lazily arrogant and deeply chilling, a man who believes his own story right up until the moment the prosecution destroys it.
The film builds to what multiple critics called a gut-punch finale that lands even if the journey to get there takes its time.
Nuremberg is now streaming on Netflix. It runs 2 hours and 28 minutes.
