Marty Supreme ★★★★

Released: 26 December 2025

Director: Josh Safdie

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher

No matter who we are or where we come from, we all have dreams and a desire to succeed in our career. These can vary in size and scope, from owning your own business, to being the absolute best in your field of expertise or the undisputed champion of a particular sport, where you will stop at nothing to be the best. As the legendary football manager Bill Shankly once said: “If you are first, you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.” In other words, you must dream big and refuse to settle for anything less. This principle lies at the frenetic, beating heart of Josh Safdie’s sports drama meets examination of the struggles to accomplish the American Dream.

It is 1952, and Marty Mauser (Chalamet) works as a shoe salesman at his uncle’s shop in New York City while also competing in tournaments as a professional table tennis player. Exceedingly confident in his abilities, he knows that selling shoes is not his calling in life with his eyes firmly set on competing in and emerging victorious at the British Open. The only problem is he lacks the funds to travel halfway around the world to compete. After scrounging the cash required through some less-than-legal means, he ultimately falls short in his quest to win the title, but his performances capture the attention of wealthy businessman Milton Rockwell (O’Leary), who wishes to strike up a partnership with Marty to boost global interest in the sport. Such a proposal piques Marty’s interest, but he ultimately decides it is beneath a player of his talents and not helpful to his mission to win the World Championships in Tokyo. This leaves Marty with no other choice but to hustle, by whatever means he can, to get on that plane to Japan.

In their creative collaborations, the Safdie brothers have proved themselves exceptionally skilled at crafting stress-inducing stories featuring less-than-savoury people hustling for money in the sprawling concrete jungle of the city that never sleeps, with Good Time and Uncut Gems being prime examples. The pursuit of their own artistic visions saw Benny take a big swing with wrestling biopic The Smashing Machine, while Josh has picked up where he left off. Re-teaming with regular screenwriter Ronald Bronstein, on the face of it, this is a sports movie. Though like a table tennis racket, there are two sides to this beast, as over the course of 150 sweaty and extremely gripping minutes, Marty is thrown headfirst into a brutal and uncompromising world of sweet-talking and swindling anyone and everyone he comes across, to accomplish his goal to be the greatest American table tennis player in history.

After making his breakthrough in 2017, Chalamet has been on a meteoric rise to the top, working with some of the biggest names in the business, collecting two Best Actor Oscar nominations along the way, and it is only a matter of time before he makes it a third and clinches that elusive trophy. His dedication to his craft is remarkable, and having spent years learning to sing, play the guitar and harmonica for his role in A Complete Unknown, he also spent years training and building up his table tennis skills to prepare for this role and kept up his training while working on other projects. As Marty (loosely based on real-life table tennis player Marty Reisman), if this man’s ego were a mountain, it would be the size of Mount Everest. Combined with the frequency with which he confidently boasts about his greatness, “it’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a TV Tropes page,” he condescendingly brags at one point. Such is his rampant narcissism, it will make you wish you could reach into the screen and whack him with a table tennis bat. Yet his charm and charisma are undeniable, and you almost want to see him succeed despite his obnoxious personality. It is a credit to Chalamet to make the audience want to root for someone so unlikeable and he serves up one of, if not quite possibly, the finest performances of his career to date.

Marty’s quest in pursuit of the World Championships title sees him encounter all sorts of characters in the mean streets of New York City along the way, most notably his two major love interests. In her first major film role since 2019, Gwyneth Paltrow reminds us of her talents with a nuanced performance as wealthy socialite Kay Stone, a retired actress and wife of the very businessman who throws Marty’s table tennis aspirations a lifeline. Yet, Marty remains undeterred and is all too willing to play with fire in his desire to be with a woman of Kay’s standing. Paltrow, in her first film role since stepping away from acting in 2019, is utterly magnetic to watch. Yet, despite the glamorous life she has, there is a vulnerability and a yearning for connection in a marriage that feels loveless. By contrast, Odessa A’zion gives a memorable breakout performance as Marty’s childhood friend Rachel Mizler. She possesses the streetwise nous required to earn the kind of funds Marty needs and gets herself involved in his risky money-making endeavours.

Shot on 35mm film, Darius Khondji’s cinematography adds a gritty aesthetic to perfectly complement the tense and chaotic nature of the story, while Daniel Lopatin’s synth-heavy score propels the film along with a relentless pace, like a tennis table ball being whacked back and forth in a super intense rally. Aside from one subplot involving a dog that could have been edited out for a tighter, more focused narrative, the film never fails to be utterly absorbing and pulsating cinema. In a memorable speech last year, Chalamet mentioned that he was in the “pursuit of greatness”. On the evidence of his latest collaboration with another high-profile filmmaker, he is well on his way to not only becoming the best actor of his generation, but as a true all-time great.