Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie)
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 150 mins
UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors
UK Release Date: 26 December 2025
WHO’S IN MARTY SUPREME?
Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Spenser Granese, Philippe Petit, Luke Manley, John Catsimatidis, Tracy McGrady, Kema Walker, Isaac Mizrahi, Naomi Fry, George Gervin, Ted Williams, Emory Cohen, David Mamet, Fred Hechinger, Levon Hawke, Hailey Gates, Géza Röhrig, Ronald Bronstein, Penn Jillette, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Ralph Colucci, Koto Kawaguchi, Pico Iyer
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Josh Safdie (director, writer, producer, editor), Ronald Bronstein (writer, producer, editor), Eli Bush, Timothée Chalamet and Anthony Katagas (producers), Daniel Lopatin (composer), Darius Khondji (cinematographer)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Aspiring ping pong player Marty Mouser (Chalamet) goes to extremes to fulfil his destiny…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON MARTY SUPREME?
Earlier this year, Timothée Chalamet turned a few heads and raised a few eyebrows when, whilst accepting the SAG Award for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, he openly declared his ambition to be one of the greatest in his field. Some called it an unusual display of ambition and even arrogance from an actor who otherwise seemed a pretty down-to-earth guy, but as it turns out it was a mere tease for what Chalamet was cooking up next. And having seen Marty Supreme, I can report that he had every right to brag.
Both Chalamet’s performance and the film itself are magnificent, as filmmaker Josh Safdie compiles a chaotic epic for the ages that feels like a pure shot of celluloid adrenaline injected straight into your eyeballs and spread out all over your body.
Taking place in New York during the early 1950s, we first meet Marty Mauser (Chalamet) working a dead-end job in his uncle’s shoe shop. He’s a hustler through and through, constantly trying to swindle everyone he comes across out of whatever he can get out of them, whether it’s intentionally selling the wrong shoe size to customers so they can splurge on more expensive footwear, or fooling around with – and eventually impregnating – his married childhood best friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion). But it’s all for a good cause – at least, a good cause for Marty and Marty only, as it gets him closer to funding his much grander dreams of dominating the world championship in table tennis – a sport that, outside of Asia, is not yet taken seriously by anyone. It’s also a sport that he already possesses the skills for and he very much knows it, his cocky yet alluring arrogance fuelling every fibre of his being as he is also incredibly good at convincing people, least of all himself, that he’s the best in the world at what he does.
However, a humiliating defeat by Japanese player Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) in the finals of the British championship bruises his ego badly, enough to drive his new life’s goal of raising whatever money he can in order to fly to Tokyo for the following year’s tournament and challenge his rival – whose own success has made him a national hero in post-war Japan – to a decisive rematch. So begins, in true Safdie fashion, a heart-racing rush from one mishap to the next, which very much like Uncut Gems and Good Time before it (both made with Safdie’s older brother Benny, whose own sports-centric awards contender The Smashing Machine severely pales in comparison to the one by his younger sibling) is a hotbed of nerves mixed with a fierce energy that is magnetic in all the possible ways.
Safdie, who in addition to directing also co-wrote, co-produced and co-edited with regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein, captures his title character’s whirlwind journey through a series of wild, almost unbelievable sequences that you would almost never expect to see in a 50s period piece. This is a film that opens with the most stylised sperm-to-egg migration since the opening credits to Look Who’s Talking, all set to Alphaville’s 80s anthem “Forever Young” (just one banger among composer Daniel Lopation’s soundtrack of beautifully anachronistic synth-heavy music), and later on you’ll have Chalamet’s Marty being shot at by crazed farmers, getting his rear spanked by the very paddle he performs with, trying to ransom a gangster’s dog (said gangster being played by legendary filmmaker Abel Ferrera, he of The Driller Killer and Bad Lieutenant fame), and even facing off against a seal whose flipper serves as its own paddle. It’s a very unpredictable movie, because there will be some scenes that start off fairly normal until without any warning people’s arms are crushed with their bones sticking out, all as Safdie refuses to dial down the chaos until those precious few moments where you actually feel yourself being able to breathe and get your heart rate down.
The ride is beyond exhilarating, perfectly paced through editing that makes the two-and-a-half hour runtime zoom past like one of Marty’s self-branded orange ping-pong balls, while Darius Khondji’s sharp cinematography lands the viewer slap-bang in the middle of this gritty, and at times rather grimy, side of New York where even the apartment hallways carry a sense of menace. Safdie’s direction is great in how, even amidst some of the most chaotic moments where dozens of people are talking over each other at once, it still provides not just clarity but also rhythm in how the story unfolds, allowing the viewer to always make sense of what’s going on even as it seems like everything is unfolding all at once.
This is especially true whenever we get to see some of the table tennis matches wherein Marty all too proudly boasts his divine talent, as the sheer speed of the ball as it zips back and forth between the players – who themselves are practically performing ballet as they thrust every muscle in whichever direction toward the oncoming ball – could at times break the sound barrier, yet Safdie frames it in a way where our eye is always on the ball, no matter what the editing or camera angles throw at us.
But a film like this only works if we too believe in Marty and his crazy dream, and thanks to Chalamet’s utterly electrifying lead performance, we end up loving someone who is, by all accounts, thoroughly unlikeable. This is a character who will use just about anyone in his life, from close friends to family members, to further his own goals and discard them the nanosecond that they’ve served their purpose, or in the case of seducing faded movie star Kay Stone (a radiant Gwyneth Paltrow) whilst also courting her wealthy businessman husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary, who is perhaps too good at playing an evil tycoon) to potentially bankroll his mission to Tokyo, doing it because he sincerely believes he is God’s gift unto the world.
Yet, even as he says and does things that would make anyone want to permanently cut contact with him, Marty is a genuine force of nature as Chalamet brings an almost inhuman level of charisma to the role that makes him someone you want to hug as well as punch square in the face, particularly as his innate ability to think on his feet and get himself out of one jam lands him in at least three more simultaneously. It’s a truly terrific performance by an actor who, more than ever, is proving himself to be one of our most talented actors with a range that is respectable and entirely engrossing. Again, his SAG speech feels entirely earned from this movie alone.
There aren’t really any low points that are even worth mentioned, for Marty Supreme is one of the year’s most perfect films, with filmmakers and actors at the top of their game delivering a colossal adrenaline rush with an immense payoff that will have you doing that forward-leaning meme at least four times. It really is that supreme of a movie.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Marty Supreme is a chaotic epic for the ages, as filmmaker Josh Safdie delivers a fast-paced and unpredictable thrill ride filled with joyously unhinged moments and led by a magnificent Timothée Chalamet whose charismatic magnetism makes us root for a deeply ego-centric protagonist in some of the year’s most enthralling moments.
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