Russell Crowe and Rami Malek's Nuremberg enters Oscar talks after TIFF 2025 premiere

James Vanderbilt’s historical drama Nuremberg, starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, received a four-minute loud standing ovation at the TIFF 2025. Right after its world premiere at Ray Thomson Hall, the film is already being speculated as a strong Oscar contender once it’s released. 

Standing ovations at Toronto International Film Festivals are rare, and Nuremberg got a long four minutes of appreciation, impressing audiences at its core. 

The courtroom drama in the film is all about the 22 Nazi figures who were involved in the atrocities in World War II. In the guise of humans, they carried out evil deeds.

Rami Malek plays the role of a U.S. Army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, who is assigned a task to examine them and is in an intense psychological battle with former Nazi leader Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe.

The film took inspiration from the novelist Jack El-Hai’s book, The Nazis and the Psychiatrist. Along with the Academy award winners Russel and Malek, the other star-studeed cast in Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg are Leo Woodall (Sgt. Howie Triest), John Slattery (Burton C. Andrus), Mark O'Brien (John Amen), Colin Hanks (Gustave Gilbert), Wrenn Schmidt (Elsie Douglas), Lydia Peckham (Lila), Michael Shannon (Robert H. Jackson), Richard E. Grant (David Maxwell Fyfe), and Lotte Verbeek (Emmy Göring), among others. 

Why is Nuremberg expected to do well during the award season, including the Oscars?

According to Deadline, even a “one-minute up-and-down” ovation is seen as a big deal, so four minutes of applause for Nuremberg has already established itself as a festival hit. Russell Crowe won his last Academy Award in 2001 for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator. 

Now, he is expected to be back in the awards race as he received a standing ovation when he joined his co-stars Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, John Slattery, Leo Woodall, Richard E Grant, and writer-director James Vanderbilt onstage.

According to director James Vanderbilt, the film is distinctive because while countless movies have been made about World War II, very few depict the events that followed it. For Russell Crowe, Hermann Göring was ‘’an interesting character to play,’’ and even spoke to the Ruetters about Hermann’s life and ambitions that led him to face the Nuremberg trials. 

He said, 

"You get to the end of the war, they decide there's gonna be a trial. And Hermann, he still thinks he can talk his way out of this."

One thing that could put this film on the list of award-winning movies is its excellent historical research. Richard E. Grant praised Vanderbilt’s research skills by saying, 

"There wasn't a question that anybody could ask that he didn't have the answer to.’’

What is Nuremberg all about?

The synopsis of the film reads:

“The year is 1945. Adolf Hitler is dead, and the Second World War is drawing to a close. Several figures within the Nazi high command have been apprehended by the Allies — among them the eerily charismatic Hermann Göring (Crowe). U.S. Lt. Colonel Douglas Kelley (Malek), an army psychiatrist, is called in to evaluate the Nazi captives. He sees his directive as an opportunity to psychologically define evil, helping to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated while providing him with material for a surefire bestseller.”

The film is soon to be released nationwide on November 7, 2025, by Sony Pictures Classics.