Rating: ★★★​​★½

Directed by: Josh Safdie

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Tyler, the Creator, Kevin O’Leary

Rated: R

Release Date: Dec. 25, 2025

Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers of ‘Marty Supreme.’

This year, the Safdie brothers went their separate ways, each independently directing sports biopics. Benny took the more conventional route with the release of “The Smashing Machine” back in October — a bruising yet ultimately tidy portrait of hardship being rewarded. In the spirit of many holiday movies, it leaves you inspired and confident in the power of hard work and dedication. Josh’s “Marty Supreme,” on the other hand, is something entirely different. 

Released on Christmas Day, and hailed by Timothée Chalamet as the great American movie of the season, “Marty Supreme” is not comforting or clean. If “The Smashing Machine” feels like a holiday movie because it rewards effort with triumph, “Marty Supreme” feels like one because it forces you to reckon with the myth of American success: our cultural fairy tale that greatness is earned by those who want it the most, even when they’re the one doing the damage. Safdie isn’t interested in the win; he’s interested in the wreckage.

Set in 1950s New York, the film centers around Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a Jewish American go-getter who has only one goal in mind: to become the greatest ping pong player the world has ever seen  — and he’ll do anything to get there. From conning locals into betting money on ping-pong matches at the bowling alley to looping his pregnant girlfriend into helping him steal a dog, Marty constantly manipulates those around him to get what he wants. And he does so without remorse or shame. 

The people around Marty are the film’s emotional core: the ones who believe in him, invest in him, patch him up, and are left to sweep up the glass every time he shatters his own life in the pursuit of selfish aspirations. They aren’t just accessories to the narrative — they expose the cost of Marty’s ambition. Marty wants to be great, and everyone else pays for it.

I cannot write this review without mentioning Chalamet’s performance. During his speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February 2025, he declared his goal of becoming “one of the greats,” a statement that was slightly controversial and came off as overconfident and egotistical. As much as I hate to admit it, he achieved that goal in “Marty Supreme.” His characterization of Marty is obnoxious, impulsive, and annoyingly charismatic. Chalamet has never been more unattractive in my eyes, and yet it’s the most compelling he’s ever been.

In the end, I can’t help but feel unsettled with Marty’s success. Yes, he worked for it — he trained, he sacrificed, and he wanted it more than anyone else in the room. But he was also a grade-A asshole. Marty burned every bridge on his way to the top and then acted shocked when the smoke followed him. He used virtually everyone in his life that was willing to help him and threw them to the side as soon as he got just a taste of what he wanted. He earns his victory, technically, but he doesn’t deserve it. And that’s the quiet tragedy of “Marty Supreme.” His success doesn’t technically redeem him; it just exposes who he always was.

Josh Safdie gives us reality. In the real world, greatness is often achieved by people who shouldn’t have it, people whose talent outpaces their integrity. Think of Einstein, Picasso, or almost all of our Founding Fathers. We call them icons, “once-in-a-generation” prodigies, but peel back the mythology and you’ll see that almost every so-called great man was, in some way, an opportunistic asshole. Marty just refuses to hide it.

And that’s why the ending hits so strangely hard. The emotional climax isn’t the match. In fact, when Marty ultimately won, I didn’t even realize that he did. There was no big roar of the crowd, no medal, no feeling of satisfaction. Instead, catharsis is found in the final scene where Marty sees his child: indisposable and unavoidable. For a moment, we see a man who has done everything wrong face something he can’t hustle his way through. There’s no angle here, no shortcut, no one left to manipulate. Just consequence. It doesn’t redeem him, but it reveals him — more honestly than his victory ever could.

“Marty Supreme” isn’t uplifting, and it isn’t trying to be. It’s a holiday movie only in the sense that the holidays force us to look at ourselves — who we’ve become, who we’ve hurt, and who still shows up for us anyway. Josh Safdie has made a film about greatness without glory, success without satisfaction, and a man who gets everything he wants, only to realize there’s nothing there. It won’t make you believe in the American dream, but it might make you question why you ever did.