Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is Stanley Kramer's courtroom drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The men on trial here aren't camp guards. They are four German judges who handed down sentences in Hitler's name, from the bench, with the law on their side.

Presiding is Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy), a plain-spoken jurist from rural Maine who weighs every word twice. Young defense counsel Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) fights hard, arguing that the guilt belongs to a whole nation, not just these four. Colonel Lawson (Richard Widmark) prosecutes. The gravest of the accused, former justice minister Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), sits in silence for most of the proceedings, until the day he finally rises and speaks for himself. Witnesses take the stand whose testimony is hard to sit through, played by Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland.

Writer Abby Mann built the script on the real 1947 Judges' Trial, the third of the postwar Nuremberg tribunals. The film took two Academy Awards, one for Schell's lead role and one for Mann's screenplay, out of eleven nominations. Marlene Dietrich quietly steals her scenes as the widow of an executed general. Three hours of talk, and not a dull minute. Stream Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) online on iFILM.