Movie review
November 6, 2025 · 149 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The 2025 drama Nuremberg follows U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley as he evaluates top Nazi prisoners, including Hermann Göring, to determine if they are mentally fit to stand trial for war crimes after World War II. It centers on their intense psychological duel and the larger effort to create international legal accountability through the Nuremberg trials. The story draws directly from real events and a nonfiction book, with the main focus on intellect, ethics, personal responsibility, and the nature of evil in specific historical figures.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Nuremberg.
Woke representation / casting
The cast uses mostly white actors in roles that match 1940s historical figures and military demographics. Rami Malek, of Egyptian-American heritage, plays the real-life white U.S. psychiatrist Douglas Kelley. This is a minor mismatch with source material but shows no audience-visible diversity marketing, quota signaling, or identity emphasis in promotion or story. One supporting Jewish survivor role has explicit plot justification through backstory.
Woke political dialogue
Dialogue stays focused on historical psychology, the nature of evil, personal ethics, and the value of legal trials versus vengeance. Vague references to evil existing in any society appear through character warnings and intertitles, but the film avoids explicit modern activist language or identity-based arguments.
Identity-driven story themes
The story examines the psychology and banality of evil in specific Nazi leaders and the need for accountability. Themes remain rooted in WWII history and individual character without identity politics, race, gender, or sexuality as central drivers.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film presents the Allied-led Nuremberg trials and creation of international war crimes law as a principled stand against tyranny and for justice. It includes limited balance on Allied actions like bombings but endorses the judicial process overall without modern activist critiques of Western institutions, patriarchy, or systemic guilt.
Woke character or canon changes
The film adapts real events and the source book with focus on documented evaluations, trial elements, and outcomes. No identity-driven or DEI-style changes to historical figures or canon are present.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Public and critical reaction centers on dramatic quality, historical simplification, and performances. Isolated online comments note antifascist leanings or contemporary relevance, but strong accusations of pushing woke, DEI, or identity politics are minimal, fringe, or absent from major coverage.
Creator track record context
James Vanderbilt specializes in historical and true-event films focused on power structures and justice without documented identity politics or representation advocacy. The producing team shows commercial historical project patterns with no public activist or DEI-driven record.
Production
