Insofar as it has a protagonist,Judgment at Nuremberg is the story of recently electorally defeated Maine judge Spencer Tracy. Tracy is the chief justice on a military tribunal hearing cases in the Nuremberg trials, the Allied attempt to hold the Germans accountable for their actions during World War II. Tracy's coming in towards the end of trials; the American public has lost interest, more enthusiastic about hating the Communist Russians than their enemies… the defeated Nazis.

I mean, yikes.

The film's trial centers around four German judges, who all wore the literal Swastika while dispensing law during the Nazi period. Now they're being held accountable for their actions, which gives all the lawyers some pause. Judges aren't expected–Nuremberg's exposition from the legal minds contends–to administer justice; they're supposed to interpret and administer the laws on the books. So, since Nazi persecution was legal, the judges are exempt from accountability. Tracy's not sure about that take, but he's a Republican who voted for FDR, which fellow judge Ray Teal thinks is weak sauce. Third justice Kenneth MacKenna is going to sway with the wind, but Teal's sure these fellows were just doing their jobs.

After all, as the Germans' lawyer (Maximilian Schell) points out… The United States loved sterilizing people. Our greatest legal minds were all for it.

Schell's the breakout performance in Nuremberg. He's a little weasel who didn't learn anything from the war. However, none of the Germans learned much, other than Burt Lancaster. He's the Weimar leader who became a Nazi rubber-stamper. Much to Schell's chagrin, he refuses to participate in the trial proceedings. Schell figures if a guy like Lancaster could be a Nazi, it wasn't so bad for Schell to be one either.

Werner Klemperer, Torben Meyer, and Martin Brandt play the other judges. Klemperer is the goose-stepper, and the others are just regular Germans. They don't have much to do, but they're perfect at it.

Nuremberg is all about the performances.

The film has three phases, each punctuated by a performance from the witness stand. The first phase belongs to Montgomery Clift, who appears as a laborer who the Germans sterilized. The second is Judy Garland's. She plays a woman who, as an orphaned teenage girl, was friends with a sixty-ish Jewish man who knew her family. They executed the man and defamed her for denying a sexual relationship. Garland actually gets two scenes on the stand. Both are fantastic, but director Kramer takes the opportunity between them to change the narrative distance a bit. We're shifting for the finale, which will have the film's various philosophical showdowns.

See, it's not just the American people who'd rather forgive and forget the Germans and start hating the Russians; it's the U.S. Army, too. They've got a new war, and can't prosecutor Richard Widmark get with it? He's a soft touch, they all think, because he liberated Dachau and still has the sads about it. It's 1947, incidentally. Alan Baxter plays the General who calls Widmark a weak sister for still carrying about it.

It's a lot, especially because Nuremberg always talks about it. There are things they don't bring up, such as none of the Americans hanging out with the local Germans being Jewish or, seemingly, caring enough about their Jewish compatriots to be uncomfortable. They're all good white Christians, after all. But Tracy's really trying to figure out if they're monsters or not.

And Tracy's not just confining his fact-finding to the courtroom. He starts seeing Marlene Dietrich. She's a blue blood who's lost it all thanks to the war. She just wants everyone to forget about it and let the Germans back into society. It's not like she knew about the concentration camps–she was a regular Army general's wife, not the S.S.

Nuremberg has its more and less straightforward resolutions, but the one for Tracy and Dietrich is fecund with subtext.

The best performance in Nuremberg, no spoilers, is Lancaster. One reason being he's under scrutiny long before he does anything. The film examines him and the character's building underneath that silent observation. He's outstanding.

After Lancaster, Garland.

Nuremberg's got a position–in the last fourteen years, it's become clear the Allies didn't go hard enough on the Germans. Teal has a whole bit about the only way to judge anything is through historical lenses; at different times during the film, Tracy and Widmark will look almost dead into the camera and denounce that idea. Schell's whole defense of the judges revolves around reestablishing those good Nazi Germany legal principles. At least in terms of assailing the marginalized. Schell flexes the fascism, getting Teal hot while letting Tracy both sides enough to hang out with Dietrich.

So, seeing how the Germans victimized and abused their own becomes essential. And Garland is the face of it. It's a beautiful performance. Kramer and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo bust ass on about a dozen close-ups in Nuremberg, but they give the best to Garland. The film's too big–and constructed as a courtroom procedural–to allow for thorough establishing shots, much less arcs. Kramer utterly relies on his cast to deliver–Tracy, Widmark, Schell, Lancaster, Garland, Clift, Dietrich.

And no one's better from that angle than Garland. Lancaster embodies a righteous rage; it fuels his energy. Especially since he's so restrained; it's like this electric buildup. But not Garland. Garland's survived Nazi Germany and just gotten some semblance of stability for the first time since she was a tween, and then Widmark shows up and says risk it all.

And Schell uses her fears to amp up the cruelty, leading to a great courtroom scene.

Clift's scene is entirely different. It's a showcase, but it's self-contained. It's beautiful work, too. It's all beautiful work. Nuremberg doesn't miss.

Besides the gorgeous photography, Frederic Knudtson's editing is standout. Abby Mann's script (based on his script for TV) is excellent. The film never dawdles; Mann's good at the exposition, good at the courtroom back-and-forth. It's a smartly assembled narrative. Kramer and the cast do wonders with it.

Nuremberg is an exceptional, complex, terrifying, and tragic motion picture.

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