Current Reviews (2026)

Marty Supreme

Directed by: Josh Safdie

Written by: Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie

Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara and Fran Dreschner

Music by: Daniel Lopatin

Rated: 15

During the 1950s, a young New York shoe salesman named Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet) hates his job, and wishes to play professional table tennis. After losing the British Open final to the Japanese champion Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), Marty suffers an endless cycle of insane bad luck after refusing an opportunity for an exhibition match in Tokyo…

After the Good Time and Uncut Gems director siblings, Josh and Benny Safdie decided to go into separate directing careers in 2024, it is ironic that their first new films developed separately, were both about the dark side of the sports industry. While Benny’s The Smashing Machine was a straightforward biopic focused on the career of Mark Kerr, Josh’s new sports film, Marty Supreme, may be loosely related to the life of the eccentric American table tennis player, Marty Reisman, but it is definitely not a biopic.

Despite starting off as a typical sports film, revolving around Marty Mauser’s road to becoming a professional table tennis player in the 1950s, the next two acts go into a completely insane direction, much like last year’s Oscar-winning Anora. With literally everything going wrong for Marty as he tries to get a plane ticket to Japan for a match, such as police chases, a bathtub falling through the roof, trying to get a gangster’s dog back from an angry farmer and having his pregnant girlfriend, Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion) tagging along, one can view Marty Supreme as either a crazy comedy, or a satire on the realities of the American dream, as Marty’s ambitious life plan is constantly being ruined via bad luck and his own ego.

Timothée Chalamet is set to receive his second Oscar nomination in a row as the wisecracking, yet constantly humiliated Marty, both Gwyneth Paltrow as an older actress who Marty tries to woo and the already mentioned Odessa A’zion as his pregnant girlfriend, both get fantastic moments as well, and Kevin O’Leary gets a memorable role as  a businessman who won’t take any of Marty’s actions, leading to a hilarious payoff involving a ping pong paddle.

Overall, Marty Supreme is a darkly funny, utterly entertaining and well-written satire on how silly the American dream can get, while also being yet another reminder of how talented Timothee Chalamet is and how great the Safdie brothers are at making these types of films, even when apart from each other.

Rating: 4.5/5