Those who have studied 20th century history know that after WWII the Allies did something no governments had ever done after a surrender. They held a formal trial, not about Germany’s acts of war but about the “crimes against humanity” that tortured, imprisioned, stole from, and murdered its own people, and tried to eradicate citizens based on their religion, disability, and sexual orientation. They were known as the Nuremberg trials.

But even those who have studied that process may not know that the American military also assigned its own psychiatrists to interview the first 22 German officers and political leaders. It was not, as in an ordinary criminal trial, to determine their ability to understand the proceedings and in some cases their culpability for their decisions, but to try to understand what kinds of minds would create what we now call the Holocaust. Those questions have continued to confound us for 80 years, and continue to be explored by historians and filmmakers, including recent documentaries like “The Last Days,” “Shoah,” and “The Grey Zone” and narrative films like “The Zone of Interest” and “A Real Pain.”

“Nuremberg,” based in part on the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, follows three intersecting stories, the efforts of Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) to get the Allied countries together to agree on the trial, the charges, and its proceedings, the interviews military psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) conducted with top Nazi official Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), and Howie Triest (Leo Woodall) a young military officer assigned to Kelley as a translator.

Jackson’s plan seems impossible, “a logistical nightmare.” “What you’re talking about is trying them in some sort of legal limbo that doesn’t exist using laws that haven’t been written yet,” he is told, and reminded that Germany never attacked the US. He would have to get the involvement of all of the Allies to participate, including the USSR. He insists, “The world needs to know what these men did.”

There is an optimism behind it, an idea that if the top Nazis were both convicted and diagnosed, it would help make sure that nothing like the Holocaust would ever happen again.

The essence of the film is in the interviews/conversations between Kelley and Göring, and the two Oscar-winners and writer/director James Vanderbilt’s script make them among the most riveting screen moments of the year.

Vanderbilt is superb in revealing the complexity of the moral and legal issues. Kelley is trained to give therapy, with patient confidentiality. Jackson wants him to use his sessions to find Göring’s vulnerabilities, to help with the prosecution. General Eisenhower insists that there be no executions without a trial, giving the men the opportunity to defend themselves. The risk of failing to find them guilty is the risk of making them martyrs, allowing atrocities to happen again. Jackson and the military are also very aware that the humiliation Germany suffered at the end of WWI played a big part in Hitler’s rise. Göring tells Kelley why he followed Hitler: “Along came a man who said we could reclaim our former glory. Would you not follow such a man?”

Jackson reminds us that the war “started with laws,” and should end with them. They have to create a sense of fairness and justice without repeating the mistakes of the post WWI Paris Peace Conference that divided up German’s territories.

The movie is well paced, as a thriller, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of history and the human capacity for evil and for good. It is never didactic or heavy-handed. There are moments of humor and excellent performances by all.

Vanderbilt has a gift for telling details like Göring ripping the lace-edged hem of his wife’s slip to make a white flag of surrender as his car reaches the Americans, and then casually telling them to get his luggage, as though the American soldiers are baggage handlers.

When the military thinks Kelley is too sympathetic, they bring in another psychiatrist (Colin Hanks), who is clear that he is there to write a book about it. Kelley is disturbed by this unabashed acknowledgement of self-interest. The film lets us know that Kelley did himself write a book, though, 22 Cells in Nuremberg: A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals. It is hard to find but well worth reading, especially its conclusion, calling for the same commitments we are still trying to achieve today. It is impossible to watch this film without being chilled by what happened in Germany. It is impossible not to think about the lessons we have failed to learn.

Parents should know that this film includes references to wartime violence and the Holocaust, with real archival footage of concentration camps. There is some strong language and characters drink, smoke, and use drugs.

Family discussion: Compare the Nuremberg trials to a later version, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Which is better? When the current global conflicts are resolved, how should we treat those involved?

If you like this, try: “Judgment at Nuremberg.” a 1961 film about the later trials, with waning interest in pursuing the Nazi judges, exploring the issues of responsibility for those in lower-level roles. and the American Experience documentary, “The Nuremberg Trials“

The “Hamilton” song “Satisfied” is sung by a character who is not at all satisfied. The sister she loves is marrying a man she loves, a man who himself, in the words of the song, is never satisfied. She sings,

A toast to the groom, to the bride
From your sister who is always by your side
To your union and the hope that you provide
May you always be satisfied
And I know she’ll be happy as his bride
And I know he will never be satisfied
I will never be satisfied.

The character who sings that song is Anjelica Schuyler, originated in the workshop as the show was developed, its off-Broadway premiere, and then when it was transferred to Broadway, by Renée Elise Goldsberry. This documentary is her story, about the two transcendent goals of her life: to be a mother, and to have a career as a performer, and the way they collided.

The history of documentaries, going back to the earliest days, is of a filmmaker on one side of the camera and the story on the other, whether it includes archival clips, fly-on-the-wall footage as the story develops, or talking head experts or witnesses. This film presents a different approach that reflects the evolution in storytelling as individuals bypass intermediaries and tell their own stories in the most unfiltered and direct way possible (and usually in vertical mode, filmed on a phone).

“Satisfied” is raw, intimate, and immediate because much of what we see is moments when Goldsberry filmed herself, not necessarily intended to show anyone else but just as a way to process what she is experiencing.

We see her heartbreaking difficulties in trying to have a child, including five miscarriages. We see the overwhelming joy of delivering a healthy baby boy, Benjamin, and then adopting a baby girl, Brielle. Their scenes together are everything we hope for a family. She and her husband adore each other and adore their children and the children love each other and their parents. One of the film’s sweetest moments is a brief home movie when Brielle, still a toddler, wants to go to school like her big brother, even though she is not quite sure what that means. So he puts a backpack on her and one on himself and tells her they are going to school even though it’s just the front door of their apartment. She is so proud and happy and he is so loving.

Goldsberry also provides narration for archival footage, telling us how she met her husband (in church) and did not tell him at first that she was a perfumer. She explains that a performer is two people; the aspiring one who is constantly anxious about getting cast and the successful one who is constantly pulled in a million directions, leaving her husband to hold her purse. That husband, Alexis Johnson, is completely on board with both elements. In another of the film’s highlights, he stands in their kitchen, tearing up as he tells us about how moved he is by her performances.

It was just after they brought Brielle home, when Goldsberry was planning to take some time off, that she was asked to audition for the workshop of “Hamilton.” Initially, she was going to say no, in part because workshop performers often help develop the material and then are passed over for bigger names when the production is launched. But she heard the songs and could not resist. We hear her worry about whether she will get cast when the show opens off-Broadway, and then we see what happens when it moves to Broadway and becomes a phenomenon. Every dream come true has some additional stress. She is nominated for a Tony award but that just means even more time away from her family as part of that process is bringing her story to the attention of the public.

The archival footage of her high school performances is endearing — and impressive. And there’s a lovely scene where she visits the high school drama teacher who cast her as Nellie in “South Pacific,” a play about a white woman dealing her her “carefully taught” prejudice.

She is a star. And yet, as she shows us, that doesn’t mean a cab driver won’t bypass her to pick up the white theater-goers who just gave her a standing ovation. And, as she also shows us, she has the same wrenching conflicts between work and family faced by every parent.

We hear from colleagues including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose and we see and hear some of Goldsberry’s thrilling performances. But what makes this film special is its private moments. This kind of honesty’s a gift, especially in a world of augmented reality. We should be grateful to Goldsberry for sharing her struggle as well as her talent and triumphs.

Parents should know that this movie deals with fertility challenges, including miscarriages, family stress, mental health, and racism.

Family discussion: How did Goldsberry decide what to prioritize? What was the most difficult decision? What made her decide to film herself and then to share those very personal moments?

If you like this, try: Goldsberry’s performances in “Hamilton,” “Girls 5Eva” and “The House with a Clock in Its Walls” — and watch the Tony Awards! It’s the best awards show on TV.

Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, two always-exceptional performers, give brilliant performances in their second Yorgos Lanthrimos film of the year. Like “Kinds of Kindness,” the film around them is filled with sound and fury and signifying very little, if anything at all. It is based on the Korean film, “Save the Green Planet!” about a man who kidnaps the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

Stone plays Michelle, the whippet-thin, ferociously disciplined CEO of a bio-medical pharma company in a tall glass skyscraper. Plemons is Teddy, who lives with his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) in the small, messy, run-down house where he grew up. His job is scanning packages for Michelle’s company, his hobby is bee-keeping, and his obsession is the online “research” that has led to his conviction that Michelle is an alien, specifically an “Andromedan” sent to destroy humanity.

As the movie opens, following comments from Teddy about the importance of pollinator bees, we see the characters in parallel preparing for the day, both exercising, Michelle running on a treadmill and fighting with her trainer and Teddy and Don doing push-ups and high-knee marches.

Stone is dazzling as the commanding CEO who has appeared on the covers of TIME and Forbes. The forceful way she strides through the offices in her Christian Louboutin shoes, the coded messages about diversity and work-life balance, her surface smoothness barely masking her steely determination, and, later, in a flashback, the way she handles a disastrous result of an experimental drug, are small masterpieces of layered, precise understanding of this character.

Plemons matches her as someone who might appear to Michelle and to us as just another guy who has fallen down a Qanon conspiracy rabbit hole, but whose own determination cannot mask his vulnerability. His mother (Alicia Silverstone) is in a coma, and we will learn about her connection to Michelle and to his “research.”

Teddy and Don kidnap Michelle, shave her head (Teddy believes she uses her hair to communicate with the other Andromedens), and chain her to a cot in the basement of their house. The best part of the movie is the way Michelle (who also refers to her research) and Teddy bounce off each other. We can see the skills that have made Michelle so successful as she mirrors and parries Teddy’s accusations, now pretending to agree with him, now trying to bribe him, using a lot of deal-speak about being on the same page or “Let’s just unpack the problem here.” Teddy responds with a mishmash of adrenaline-fueled conspiracy theories, and there is quite a verbal dance, from feigned acquiescence to power plays as Michelle tries to find a way to reach or rattle him.

I’d say that the movie goes off the rails after this, but it was never really on the rails. While it follows the plot developments of the original, even if we assume that version was successful, it is a different time and we are different audience with different expectations. The movie turns into a literal bloodbath. A confession of abuse and horrific violence are unjustified and pointless and the music choices are thuddingly obvious. The ending is hollow and superficial. The movie sets itself up for insights about conspiracy theories, violence, the environment, economic disparity, and predatory corporations, only to let us know it has nothing to say.

Parents should know that this is a disturbing movie with torture, suicide and murder, massive deaths, and bloody violence. Characters use strong language.

Family discussion: Both Michelle and Teddy claim to have done their research. With unprecendented access to information and disinformation, what is the best way to do research that is based on facts and reliable data? What do you think is the lesson of the ending.

If you like this, try: “Save the Green Planet!” and “Okja”

If you live in the Washington DC area, you can join me for a free screening of the new Netflix animated movie for families, “In Your Dreams” on November 1 at Tysons.

Get tickets here.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween gives kids a thrilling opportunity to act out their dreams and pretend to be characters with great power. But it can also be scary and even overwhelming for the littlest trick-or-treaters. An introduction to the holiday with videos from trusted friends can help make them feel comfortable and excited about even the spookier aspects of the holiday.

Kids ages 3-5 will enjoy Barney’s Halloween Party with a visit to the pumpkin farm, some ideas for Halloween party games and for making Halloween decorations at home, and some safety tips for trick-or-treating at night. They will also get a kick out of Richard Scarry’s The First Halloween Ever, which is Scarry, but not at all scary! Elmo’s Halloween Party features Sesame Street favorite characters enjoying costumes, counting pumpkins, and trick and treating.

Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest has the beloved little monkey investigating the Legend of “No Noggin.” Disney characters celebrate Halloween in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – Mickey’s Treat.

Witches in Stitches is about witches who find it very funny when they turn their sister into a jack o’lantern. And speaking of jack o’lanterns, Spookley the Square Pumpkin, is sort of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer of pumpkins. The round pumpkins make fun of him for being different until a big storm comes and his unusual shape turns out to have some benefits.

Kids from 7-11 will enjoy A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting. It has gorgeously imagined settings, a great cast, and an exciting story that hits the exact sweet spot between funny-scary and scary-funny. Which means it is exciting and fun. “Muppets Haunted Mansion” combines all the Muppet favorites with one of the most popular attractions at the Disney theme parks, which also inspired the Haunted Mansion live-action film starring Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and  LaKeith Stanfield. If you have Disney+, be sure to watch the Behind the Attraction episode about the creation of the various Haunted Mansions and how each one is designed specifically for its location.

Don’t forget the classic It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and the silly fun of What’s New Scooby-Doo: Halloween Boos and Clues. Try The Worst Witch movie and series, about a young witch in training who keeps getting everything wrong. School-age kids will also enjoy The Halloween Tree, an animated version of a story by science fiction author Ray Bradbury about four kids who are trying to save the life of their friend. Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock on the original “Star Trek”) provides the voice of the mysterious resident of a haunted house, who explains the origins of Halloween and challenges them to think about how they can help their sick friend. The loyalty and courage of the kids is very touching.

Debbie Reynolds plays a witch who takes her grandchildren on a Halloween adventure in the Disney Channel classic in Halloweentown.  Recent favorites include The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Curse of Bridge Hollow, and Goosebumps.

Older children will appreciate The Witches, based on the popular book by Roald Dahl (the original with Anjelica Huston, not the remake with Anne Hathaway) and Hocus Pocus and the sequel, with children and teens battling three witches played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy. And of course there is the deliciously ghoulish live-action double feature Addams Family and Addams Family Values based on the cartoons by Charles Addams. Episodes of the classic old television show are online and  there are now two animated films for younger kids. The second is better than the first.  The new Munsters from Rob Zombie is not good, but the original TV series episodes are still fun.

Beetlejuice is a classic, even a Broadway musical, with a 2024 sequel. I’m fond of Beautiful Creatures, based on the best-selling YA novels about a witchy family in the American South.

ParaNorman and Monster House  are two wonderful movies that should become a  family Halloween tradition. Frankenweenie,  Igor, and the Hotel Transylvania series are also a lot of fun.

The Nightmare Before Christmas has gorgeous music from Danny Elfman and stunningly imaginative visuals from Tim Burton and Henry Selick in a story about a Halloween character who wonders what it would be like to be part of a happy holiday like Christmas. Selick’s Coraline, based on the book by Neil Gaiman, is wildly imaginative. His 2022 film, “Wendell & Wild,” was co-written with Jordan Peele, who lends his voice to the film with his longtime colleague Keegan-Michael Key.

And don’t forget old classics like The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. (horror/comedy treats) and the omnibus ghost story films Dead of Night and The House that Dripped Blood.

For something more romantic, try “Bell Book and Candle” with “Vertigo” stars James Stewart and Kim Novak. Or the delightful romantic comedy “I Married a Witch” with Frederic March and Veronica Lake.

Happy Halloween!