Summary

• James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg seeks to make waves at Cannes, thanks to Rami Malek and Russell Crowe's portrayal of a psychiatrist and a Nazi.
• The WWII-era film explores the post-war Nuremberg Trials, focusing specifically on the minds behind the German war crimes in Europe.
• Vanderbilt defers from previous films like Judgment at Nuremberg, focusing mainly on the relationship between Douglas Kelley and Hermann Göring.

One of the more hotly anticipated films at Cannes is James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg. The war film is currently in search of a distributor with an unknown release date. This collaboration between Oscar winners Rami Malek and Russell Crowe takes on familiar territory, examining the legal dissection of the Nazi regime and the policies they set forth that directly led to the Holocaust. Set in the aftermath of the destruction of Europe in late 1945, the two actors square off as reluctant patient and doctor, exploring less the policies and technicalities of the German atrocities than the personalities behind them.

Our first look at Nuremberg came today, May 15, with Deadline sharing first-look images of the film. This fittingly comes alongside its appearance at the Cannes Film Festival. Check out the images and learn more below.

A Psychiatrist Comes Face to Face with Evil

Director James Vanderbilt reintroduces an old tale to a new generation, with a new perspective. Dramatizing the events of the Nuremberg Trials, the movie follows the war crimes tribunal set up by the victorious powers and France in late 1945 and early 1946. Departing from earlier films on this subject, Nuremberg will zoom into the action and take a more intimate look at the real-life parties involved.

Nuremberg is adapted from Jack El-Hai's biography of a US Army psychiatrist named Douglas Kelley (played by Rami Malek), the full title of which is The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII. In preparation for the Nuremberg trial, Kelley interviewed many members of the Third Reich's upper echelon, and none stands out quite so much as the enigmatic Hermann Göring, portrayed in the movie by Russell Crowe.

We'll spare a spoiler warning, but for history buffs the appeal will be seeing the interactions of the infamously eccentric Luftwaffe leader and his court-appointed shrink, with Vanderbilt eschewing the epic scale for a more suffocating character study.

Nuremberg Is a Warning from the Past

Nuremberg highlights the unique relationship between the Nazi and the American psychiatrist. In one of his writings, Kelley once observed (via Scientific American), "We must learn the why of the Nazi success so we can take steps to prevent the recurrence of such evil." Kelley's role was truly special, one of the very few individuals that had access to Göring in captivity. He was tasked with unraveling the motivations and justifications that created the fetid Nazi cult of personality, while at the same time feeling conflicted over the emotional bond he had formed with Göring as the disgraced national hero divulged his innermost thoughts, vulnerabilities, and fears.

Vanderbilt explained to Deadline his interest in the book, expressing the universality and resonance of the landmark war crimes prosecution in modern times, when evil doesn't always take on readily identifiable forms or wear matching uniforms:

"It’s the old adage that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The easiest way for us to do harm to other people is to look at them as other; as different from us. We assume they’ll dress like Nazis and announce themselves as bad guys, but that’s not the way the world works. That’s not how terrible things can happen."

Nuremberg is scheduled to premiere at Cannes before later moving to theaters across the world later this year. The film also stars Michael Shannon, John Slattery, Richard E. Grant, and Colin Hanks.