Review: Marty Supreme is Chock Full of Energy and Ping Pong

If you thought Uncut Gems was stressful, Josh Safdie’s solo directorial debut, Marty Supreme, will make you want to check your own blood pressure in the lobby. This isn’t just a sports movie about ping-pong; it’s a 150-minute panic attack dressed in 1950s wool suits and smelling of stale New York cigarette smoke. Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a fictionalized version of ping-pong legend Marty Reisman. This is comfortably the best work of Chalamet’s career. Gone is the soft-spoken “sad boy” of Dune or Call Me By Your Name. In his place is a spindly, motor-mouthed, and deeply reprehensible hustler who treats a table tennis match like a gladiator pit.

Marty is an anti-hero in the truest Safdie sense: he’s a con man, a terrible son, and a guy who accidentally gets a girl pregnant (a fantastic, grounded Odessa A’zion) only to flee to London for a tournament. Chalamet plays him with a kinetic, twitchy arrogance that makes you want to punch him and root for him in the same breath. Safdie continues his streak of eccentric casting that somehow works perfectly

Kevin O’Leary: Yes, the guy from Shark Tank. He plays an abrasive businessman in a role so tailor-made for his “Mr. Wonderful” persona that it blurs the line between performance and reality.

Gwyneth Paltrow: Coming out of retirement to play Kay Stone, a faded movie star who becomes Marty’s erotic obsession, she is the icy, sophisticated foil to Marty’s frantic energy.

Tyler, The Creator: His film debut is surprisingly natural, providing a rhythmic, cool-headed counterpoint to the madness.

The film looks and sounds incredible. Darius Khondji’s cinematography is grainy, tactile, and claustrophobic, while Daniel Lopatin’s (Oneohtrix Point Never) score is a clattering, dizzying companion to the “click-clack” of the balls. Safdie treats ping-pong with an operatic seriousness; the final act in Japan is shot with the intensity of a high-stakes thriller, making a hollow plastic ball feel as heavy as a lead weight.

Marty Supreme is a “screwball nightmare.” It’s loud, it’s dialogue-heavy, and it’s arguably too long, but it’s also the most visceral movie-going experience of the 2025 holiday season. It’s a story about the “banality of ambition”—the idea that chasing greatness often leaves you standing in a room full of wreckage. It’s not a film that asks to be liked, but by the time the credits roll to that insane needle-drop, you’ll be too breathless to care.