Film release calendar December 2025

In the aftermath of the Second World War, while the world is still shocked by the horrors of the Holocaust, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley, a US Army psychiatrist, is entrusted with an unprecedented assignment: to evaluate the sanity of Hermann Göring, Hitler’s infamous former right-hand man, and other top Nazi leaders. At the same time, the Allies – led by Judge Robert H. Jackson, face the titanic task of establishing an international tribunal, to make the Nazi regime answer for its crimes in the face of history. In the silence of the cells, Kelley engages in an intense psychological duel with Göring, a charismatic and manipulative man. From that clash emerges a question that still torments the conscience of the world today: were they following orders, were they crazy or simply evil? Thus the Nuremberg trial opens on the stage of history, an event that changed history and humanity forever.

Russell Crowe’s ‘monstrous’ performance undermines the entire film which however, as soon as he takes his eyes off Hermann Göring, goes out of focus. James Vanderbilt, screenwriter of Zodiac and director, ten years ago, of Truth – The price of truth, sticks to the book which has transport to the big screen and does not investigate this interesting aspect of Göring’s last years but concentrates on the preparation of the Nuremberg trial and on the Americans’ attempt to grasp a possible defensive line of the Nazi hierarchs with the help of psychiatrists, just like Doctor Douglas Kelley, and psychologists like Gustave Gilbert who will be alongside him. However, as soon as the narrative moves away from these two-person encounters, which could have become memorable for the level of introspection, the dramaturgy loses interest because the film follows the theoretical and physical construction of the Nuremberg trial in an all-too-classical manner.