Let's Anticipate MARTY SUPREME, the Josh Safdie-Timmy Chalomet table tennis flick

https://i.imgur.com/KJSeT3E.jpeg

He certainly does act a lot in it.

You've seen it already?

Yup -- screener.

judging by his makeup and costume in that screenshot he's out to show the world he's more than just a pretty face

It didn't work, cuz he's prettier than ever.

much sweating?

Who's better: Tyler The Creator or Kevin O'Leary?

My wife and I call Timothee "our favorite imaginary grandson".

Kevin O’Leary is my least favourite imaginary uncle.

I had to look him up.

alfred, could you say more about what you mean about the acting? I really didn’t get that at all on my watch. everything seemed (as expected in a safdie film) pretty true to life

I liked this a lot. maybe just a shade below UNCUT GEMS but certainly in the same league

it actually pained me how charismatic kevin o’leary was in this movie

Both Safdies have a habit of pumping up the kicks in the second hour of their pictures; this thing is just overplotted. Compare this movie with The Secret Agent in the way the latter introduces characters that play like inhabitants of a world instead of in Marty Supreme where they exist as anxiety generators.

Chalamet is loose and game and quite hot in the first hour ("If I believe in myself, money will follow") but no way should he, say, be dominating critics awards.

Timothée Chalamet has teamed up with British rapper EsDeekid for a new ‘MARTY SUPREME’ rap. pic.twitter.com/ZXOGFLP1VS

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 19, 2025

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely heavy on "anxiety generators," as Alfred puts it, and feels like the same tools as Good Time and Uncut Gems but in different genres here (sports movie, young-man-grows-up, etc.).

Not much of a spoiler, but someone described this and The Mastermind as having basically the same protagonist, but this one is going at 78 rpm; but in both cases having a guy whose drive basically leaves him disconnected from those around him.

And I love that it doesn't have stunt casting as much as fun casting, with Abel Ferrara and Pico Iyer as my MVPs.

Oh (sorry for the triple post) and one more spoiler:

The last shot felt so similar to the last scene of Anora, where suddenly we're seeing a whole other side to the character; or crying is a way to give the audience some of that before sending them home.

casting was super fun, and never felt like cameos for their own sake. MVP for me was Penn Jillette as the farmer with the dog.

the first half was entertaining but by the 2hr mark i was waiting for it to end, i didnt think it had earned its length at all. it was all just way too familiar for me after Good Time and Uncut Gems (especially considering the sports angle in Gems). felt like the Casino to Uncut Gems' Goodfellas, confidently revisiting the same bag of tricks on a bigger scale, but the shock of the new is gone.

A deeply unsettling headline: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/kevin-oleary-recalls-smacking-timothee-chalamets-butt-in-marty-supreme-excl/

(haven’t seen film)

Turns out it was Paul Schrader who made that '78 rpm' comparison above:

THE MASTERMIND AND MARTY SUPREME WOULD MAKE A GOOD DOUBLE BILL. The same 45 single played at different speeds, one at 33 rpm, the other at 78 rpm. Two period picaresque tales of seemingly intelligent American young men who stumble from one hapless misdeed to the next. Kelly Reichardt's film is all restraint, Josh Safdie's all exess. Both are excellent.

the first half was entertaining but by the 2hr mark i was waiting for it to end, i didnt think it had earned its length at all. it was all just way too familiar for me after Good Time and Uncut Gems (especially considering the sports angle in Gems).

otm

this struck me as timothee’s ‘catch me if you can’. now, i like that movie better than ‘marty supreme’ mostly because i’ll take spielberg’s classic cinema magic making and leo’s true leading man rakishness over the safdies’ tightly coiled twitchy nervous energy and timothee as antihero. but i think both present their leading men in a similarly flattering light, that combo of charm and mischief paired with quick pacing. the exploitation and ugly desperation is more present in this — at times i thought of ‘the brutalist’ — but that is obviously typical with the safdies. overall i thought this was better than i expected given that it was rooted in that conman caper-y aspect for large portions of the film as opposed to a more standard sports movie narrative arc. when we got the latter, including almost all of the ping pong parts, is when it dragged for me. the staging was wonderful but watching ping pong can only be so interesting. i also thought the film kinda ended with a whimper and not terribly much to say, which felt like a waste

oh and tho i will chide the stunt casting as an ethos, i agree that kevin o leary was shockingly good. it felt like he had the third most screen time and it was not unearned

feel crazy saying this, but i think i would have liked this more if it had more ping pong content? one of the best moments for me(& one of Chalamet's best acting moments) was when he first sees Endo play and is captivated, "who's that guy? what's up with his paddle? etc etc" iirc its one of the only moments in the film when he expresses any interest in ping pong as a game.

it just felt weird that this guy is a world class ping pong player but never seems to ever talk about it or think about it except when he's playing. does he even like it? maybe not and he just sees it as a vehicle for fame, money & revenge. but then how is he so good - is he just a preternatural savant and never needs to practice? how did he get so caught up in it - he must like it on some level, right?

this takes so many beats from the standard sports film playbook, but in those films there's almost always a scene where the lead gives some insight into what they like about the game, why they do it, what they find beautiful about it, etc. in this film it just kind of seems like he's joylessly addicted to playing ping pong in the same way that Howard in Uncut Gems is addicted to gambling, and that's all there is to it. his relationship to the game remains pretty much a mystery.

obviously one of the selling points of the movie & him as a character is that its the quirky nontraditional sport of ping pong rather than basketball or racecar driving or whatever, but then the movie doesnt end up treating that detail as if its all that interesting, and idk, i think that's pretty interesting! per j0rdan i agree that the ping pong playing scenes largely fell flat for me, and maybe wouldnt have it the movie had indulged in some basic-bitch exposition about what makes someone a good ping pong player, what Marty does that nobody else does, what the strategies are, etc.

and if the movie's not interested in ping pong thats fine too, but then - cut some of the damn ping pong!

feel crazy saying this, but i think i would have liked this more if it had more ping pong content? one of the best moments for me(& one of Chalamet's best acting moments) was when he first sees Endo play and is captivated, "who's that guy? what's up with his paddle? etc etc" iirc its one of the only moments in the film when he expresses any interest in ping pong as a game.

i think this is true. i liked the scene where he beats the world number 1 and they do trick shots at the end to delight the crowd, the character needed that element of showmanship and the film needed some of the levity. however by the climax of the movie we’ve shifted into this very basic sports narrative structure, the really familiar pattern of action shots to emotive crowd reaction shots and back and forth, and again for as well staged as that scene was there’s only so many ways to make ping pong play edge of your seat cinema

There’s that scene in the middle where he says why he wouldn’t want to be just a Harlem Globetrotters halftime sideshow, but that’s before he makes a living doing trick shots for a bit. Not unlike where Lydia Tár ends up, it might be a better and stabler life.

yeah otm -- I also caught a Catch Me If You Can ethos, though Marty's more of a dirtbag obv

tho i will chide the stunt casting as an ethos, i agree that kevin o leary was shockingly good

is kevin o'leary stunt casting? is anyone stunt casting? I don't get it.

I'll admit to not recognizing Abel Ferrara, like, at all.

basically agree with all of jordan’s post. I’m still puzzling over the ending too, having tried not to read too many reviews until after I see it again. someone I think itt compared it to the ending of ‘anora,’ but I think that one, while still imo shocking and effective, felt a lot more sensible.

I haven’t looked up anything on how the ping pong scenes were shot — were they actually hitting the ball? obviously the japanese guy is a real life competitive player, and chalamet deserves credit for learning the mechanics well, but my sense while watching them was that the ball was computer-generated. some of the trajectories seemed unrealistic

it just felt weird that this guy is a world class ping pong player but never seems to ever talk about it or think about it except when he's playing. does he even like it? maybe not and he just sees it as a vehicle for fame, money & revenge. but then how is he so good - is he just a preternatural savant and never needs to practice? how did he get so caught up in it - he must like it on some level, right?

I don’t know if this is true though. he talks about it all the time, and they show him grinding hours in that ping pong club after work. I think it’s shown that he practices a lot

J0rdo/kev

I really liked the ending and i think that its unearned/whimper status is kind of the point. The key to understanding the movie to me is the “I am a vampire” line from Mr Wonderful: he is singularly driven by one passion and will follow you to the ends of the earth to achieve it. Marty is the same way about pingpong and he *literally* followed dude to the other side of the planet basically to prove a point.

Marty, though, in his own way, lived his dream and beat the champ. That’s it. He climbed Everest, he beat the best. Dude may never pick up a paddle again.

And what’s left for Marty once he conquered his demon? this baby. He had one thing to live for and —because he burned all his bridges and never had a chance to breathe — he immediately replaced it with something else to live for and that’s a happy moment and a sad moment.

I think that may be strikethrough instead of hidden text. I’m on the app.

pretty conservative ending

I mostly enjoyed this. The production design was fantastic, great acting and fun cameos, I liked the music even though I don't exactly get what the rationale was behind it. My main criticisms are that it was too long, way too much of the movie spent chasing around that dog, and it awkwardly tried to split the difference between Uncut Gems-style insanity and a more conventional character study/sports flick. Unlike previous Safdie characters, Marty was far too charismatic and talented to ever feel like he was in true danger.

This was fun to start with on its own terms, badly outstayed its welcome, and ultimately was a meaningless load of pony (crap) - despite the huge amount of people and talent involved.

It made a lot of money this weekend.

Yeah, seem to be a lot of screenings selling out here, including the one I was at.

It’s one of the only movies on screens at the moment besides that insipid-looking Avatar sequel.

it’s doing well because chalamet is a star, and the reviews and word of mouth have been very positive

ILX good with a Marty Supreme/Smashing Machine/Machina of the Gods poll that ends in 6 months?

I'm delighted and relieved it's doing well.

felt interminable at points, the table tennis scenes dragged (not to mention the iffy cgi), soundtrack was slightly incongruous, has a literal shaggy dog story plonked in the middle, and then the ending’s slightly soft (choosing ‘dignity and family’ over the wild expansiveness of whatever it was he had going ‘til then)… notwithstanding all that I enjoyed it. mostly because TC is a force of nature and kevin o’leary a perfect foil

Timothée Chalamet is officially the king of the Christmas box office.

It’s the third consecutive holiday season where the A-list star has dominated at the box office, a reign that began with 2023’s family-friendly musical “Wonka” and continued with 2024’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” This year’s ping pong adventure, “Marty Supreme,” extended the trend, serving up a stellar $27 million over the four-day frame. And Chalamet’s domination around the merriest of holidays should endure with 2026’s “Dune: Part III,” set for Dec. 18.

“Seemingly every year, Timothée has a major hit during the important holiday moviegoing corridor,” notes Comscore’s head of marketplace trends, Paul Dergarabedian. “No matter the genre, whether it’s a musical, biopic, sci-fi or comedy, his choice in the material and collaborators has made him not only a bona fide movie star, but a box-office draw.”

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/marty-supreme-timothee-chalamet-christmas-box-office-king-1236615317/

call him timothee christmasday

i never found it interminable or draggy. it's the opposite of that for me. it doesn't feel like it gels or coheres very well when you're done, but it's never not-entertaining while you're watching it.

that's pretty much where I'm at

kind of felt like it was a series of set pieces instead of a narrative, but they were enjoyable set pieces

It’s the third consecutive holiday season where the A-list star has dominated at the box office, a reign that began with 2023’s family-friendly musical “Wonka” and continued with 2024’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

well at least he got around to making one of these xmas tentpoles good

a tentpole made by a beanpole

i kind of enjoyed wonka for what it was. complete unknown was obviously a broad cliche biopic but the performances (by the women specifically) won me over

the performances in complete unknown are pretty good but the whole movie looks like a car commercial

complete unknown blows

otm

If we're going to talk holiday winning streak with him in it, right now the next Dune movie comes out December 2026.

You might call it a Chalamet-December romance

complete unknown blows

b-b-but he's our sweet-faced imaginary grandson and he learned to play the guitar just so he could be in the movie. Awwwwww, such a nice boy, too.

the table tennis scenes dragged (not to mention the iffy cgi)

Thank you for that information. AFI Silver has a 70mm print but is charging $25 a ticket. (And The Testament of Ann Lee will be in a 70mm print at $22. I support analog media, and AFI, and indie underdogs in general, but I have my limits.)

The Testament of Ann Lee is interesting and worth a watch.

Really enjoyed this while I was watched it, but have slightly cooled on it while thinking back over it today. It was like a rollercoaster at the time, but I'm not sure if it'll have lasting impact (for me). I feel a bit like I did about The Brutalist, which really grabbed me in the moment and I came out of the cinema very excited by, but then I went off distinctly the more I thought about it and talked about it with friends.

Also, in terms of Marty Supreme, there were quite a few stylistic things that really made me think of Uncut Gems. The opening especially with the sperm & egg to ping pong ball transition seemed like the exact same 'trick' as the opal to colonoscopy journey that starts Uncut Gems - I loved it in both btw, it was particularly hilariously done in Marty Supreme with the 80s soundtrack kicking in there. I see it's the same cinematographer, so I guess that kind of thing makes sense.

was the smashing machine any good

It was p good

I almost stopped watching after the sperm scene.

I mean, one usually does...

It's ridiculous, but I felt like they knew that and played up to it, which made it work for me and be very funny.

And I’m sure it was intended to rhyme with the Uncut Gems colonoscopy opening: that one a story about hurtling toward death, this one hurtling toward birth.

Oh.

Their Gatsby will open from inside Chalamet’s eye while getting an eye exam etc etc.

im surprised no one here is talking about the sperm scene as an homage to look who's talking

also pvmic but i loved george gervin in this

such a strange take to want more Ping Pong

im surprised no one here is talking about the sperm scene as an homage to look who's talking

― cam'ron winter (m bison)

Mentioned it in my review.

Thinking about whether there should be more or less ping pong, is the ping pong kind of a macguffin?

Mentioned it in my review.

hell yeah, justice 4 amy heckerling

also that one will.i.am video

i liked a complete unknown. i like how it acknowledged that dylan goes electric--which boomer self-mythologizing had elevated to an event on a par with the riots at the original performance of rite of spring--was ultimately a pretty low event of minor consequence where a guy played the electric guitar at a folk festival, and had more of an aimless hang out vibe. imo undeniable that chalamet was great as bob

i thought marty supreme was great, too. i appreciated the shift towards more conventional story-telling and away from the anxiety-attack five alarm shaky-cam of uncut gems and their earlier work. every department--performances, production design, choreography, soundtrack--was on fire, but i feel like the ultimate triumph is the assemblage of weird-looking dudes in the tertiary cast (ted williams, ratso sloman) ingeniously recontextualized to 1950s jewish nyc

quality lol: the honey story

Was genuinely going to post that CU blows and that a large part of the blowage is Chalamet's useless Bob imp

i expected to hate it, went in with a fairly strong anti-chalamet bias, but it won me over

Not being snarky, are you much of a Bob fan, flops? I disliked CU partly because it put me in the position of being a nitpicking Dylanologist growling about all the inaccuracies and distortions, whereas if I was less invested in Dylan I think I could've enjoyed the parts of the film more - Edward Norton's performance, the set dressing, period detail etc. Would still be mystified why they didn't have TC miming to the original recordings tho.

idk i'm a huge dylan fan and i like the movie. as i said already, i adore monica barbaro and elle fanning in it. i also think caring about accuracy re: dylan is like missing some kind of fundamental point about the guy. the second time i watched it, i saw it with my mom who sang along to every song and cried a lot, which was worth any hoary biopic cliches to experience

Its most Dylanesque gesture is letting Chalamet sing those songs.

Not being snarky, are you much of a Bob fan, flops? I disliked CU partly because it put me in the position of being a nitpicking Dylanologist growling about all the inaccuracies and distortions, whereas if I was less invested in Dylan I think I could've enjoyed the parts of the film more - Edward Norton's performance, the set dressing, period detail etc. Would still be mystified why they didn't have TC miming to the original recordings tho.

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 30 December 2025 13:27 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i consider myself a big fan of his music, but i’m definitely less familiar with the details of his biography than you are, and i wasn’t much aware of inaccuracies and distortions while watching it. i have watched many videos of bob on youtube tho :)

I will say that both Bob Dylan and Gene Wilder both get a lot of their magic from an *unconventional* handsomeness and casting a conventionally attractive dreamboat actor to play them really fucks up both Complete Unknown and Wonka

my gf says he looks like adam friedland

flops, I'm sorry to report that a gf who knows who adam friedland is 🚩🚩🚩

Chalamet was playing Gene Wilder? (I haven't seen new Wonka)

I loved A Complete Unknown despite myself-- that is, it felt like the most unnecessary movie I've ever seen, right up there with "a live-action reboot of a Disney animated classic" or something. I think I just really loved seeing some actors I don't adore (Chalamet, Norton, Holbrook) deliver excellent performances, it was like a "yay team you did it" kinda movie

Well!

At one point, Safdie had written a version of the film where Marty was shown in the 1980s. It was an alternate ending. Safdie says, “He’s at a Tears for Fears concert with his granddaughter, listening to the lyrics of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World,’ and reflecting on his youth.”

And Lopatin, from that same article:

“The score goes back to, what would it be like to think back on your coming of age in the 1950s while hearing Tears for Fears blasting in your ears, and maybe you’re side by side with your children, but somewhere else in your mind?”

I'm reminded of another movie character who enjoyed Tears for Fears late in life.

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-25-at-11.00.34-AM-e1698246070617.png

saw it today and liked it quite a bit. i think the reading that's out there that the movie is marty retelling his youth from a future point of view makes a fair amount of sense and helps pull together some of the more outlandish set pieces as things that a guy like him would self-mythologize and exaggerate about.

did not know prior to seeing it that josh is a relatively new dad but that obviously tracks with how this ends vs uncut gems or good time, and even though he still can't resist the frenetic pacing stuff i do think this at least iterated on it enough to be a different experience than those movies, largely in a good way.

and the casting stuff they do remains amazing--so many totally unique faces/voices/characterizations that draw you in to every single scene. some of kevin o'leary's best moments are when he isn't talking but just being a presence...like a black hole threatening to suck up marty's energy.

great film.

some of kevin o'leary's best moments are when he isn't talking but just being a presence...like a black hole threatening to suck up marty's energy.

otm. o’leary has permanent gasface

Enjoyed this, and I think it's Chalamet's most inhabited performance — I totally bought him as that dude in a way I didn't as Dylan or Paul Atreides. (It's been a while since I saw Call Me by Your Name, I know he's good in that too, but he was partly getting by on being an ingenue.) I thought ping-pong works well as a metaphor for Safdie's whole narrative approach, it's all shot, counter-shot, desperately looking for a way to stay in the game, one improbable rescue or heartbreak after another. It did feel absurdly overloaded, what with the pregnant girlfriend, the Gwyneth seductions, the hustling tangent, the lost dog, the shoe store subplot it's a lot — and that's all without the actual ping-pong. A strand or two could have been trimmed, because when you pile on that many different stresses for me it has a bit of a numbing effect.

But inventive and ambitious, well made and terrifically acted. And entertaining!

Loved that. Didn't feel long at all.

I've seen articles claiming Marty M. is "unlikeable." That's normally a charge against female protagonists. The idea that this is early 80s Marty (mis)remembering early 50s Marty makes sense. But I don't understand how anyone--blood relatives, never mind outsiders--put up with him more than once.

He's an antihero! (It's him, hi, he's the trouble, it's him.)

anyone who doesn’t like a film because the protagonist is “unlikeable” isn’t worth paying attention to

But I don't understand how anyone--blood relatives, never mind outsiders--put up with him more than once.

on a second watch I did get a better sense of how many of the people in his life--the two women especially--are actually quite drawn to him, feeding off his energy and chaos. I have certainly known people like that, who seem to draw all kinds of people to them despite being the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.

not directing this toward anyone itt. but a good rule of thumb

also, marty was very likeable fwiw, kind of how he got to do all the stuff he did

Safdie films are all full of people you wouldn't want to run into in real life. But they force you to empathize on some level by making you suffer through their desperation and the inevitability of the consequences.

Also the secret to Marty's magnetism is that he's Timothee Chalamet.

i think even more than empathize you can admire their, uh, life force--I think what makes the Safdie movies interesting is precisely that they are willing to follow the jouisannce wherever it leads. precisely why anyone saying that marty deserves some kind of comeuppance are really missing something essential that they want to confront you with.

I mean without getting too obvious there is no serious film or work of art where you’re supposed to think the main character is literally you. you’re supposed to identify *parts* of them with parts of you, see yourself in their shoes, try to understand a different life or point of view, sort of the whole point of art. people who say they don’t like something because they don’t like the main character are babies with baby brains

not to be too #onethread but also applies to not wanting listen to music because it’s made by a white guy or whatever, grow up

i've heard both "why is he so unlikable" and "i liked the ping pong stuff" and "how come nothing happens" all from people I know and otherwise respect. gonna be fun when this one hits streamers.

COVID brain rot.

I can understand the first two but “how come nothing happens”! Are they watching a different film? Some of the criticism I’ve seen is too much is happening.

Some of the criticism I’ve seen is too much is happening.

That's (more or less) my criticism.

There was a lot going on, but even though the dog was my least favorite subplot, at some point in the second trip to Penn's farm I was struck by this, uh, lyricism in all the chaos, a kind of grace. Basically I think Josh Safdie just loves making movies and that joy comes through.

I've seen articles claiming Marty M. is "unlikeable." That's normally a charge against female protagonists. The idea that this is early 80s Marty (mis)remembering early 50s Marty makes sense. But I don't understand how anyone--blood relatives, never mind outsiders--put up with him more than once.

I hate this demand for characters to be “likable.” This character is very charming, very driven, yet obsessive and fatally flawed. And yet his narcissism isn’t total; he does have the capacity to care for others. Perfect protagonist for a movie.

My only caveat: you might get a different response from a female audience, as I've learned in the last couple weeks.

The Safdie films — or at least, Good Times, Uncut Gems and Marty Supreme — are basically survival stories. The rooting interest is like the rooting interest in a Jack London story. The guy in "To Build a Fire" is mostly a victim of his own ignorance and misjudgments, but the reader still has this kind of primal empathy on an animal level — can he make it out of this? (In that case, no.)

Discussed this a little in the conclusion to my review https://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/marty-supreme-reviewed-timothee-chalomets-street-smart-hustler-leads-screwball-caper-152553/

Funny interview with Kevin O'Leary. He totally embraced that they wanted him to play a total asshole just like him: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/movies/marty-supreme-cast-kevin-oleary.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CFA.jsWY.o4O3tDFI0qvD&smid=url-share

They sent me the PDF three or four days before, and I printed two copies because I wanted to make notes. A longtime friend of mine, the banker Gene McBurney, decided to drop in. He got up at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise, and the two copies of the script were sitting on the bar. He took one and started reading it out on the deck. A little later I got up, and I said, “Gene, what are you doing?” He said, “Kevin, have you read this script? This thing is insane. This guy, Milton Rockwell, it’s got to be you. This is crazy — crazy! — whoever wrote this is a very sick person.”

Why that mattered to me is that this random guy reads the story and goes nuts. I thought, “OK, there is an index for you about where this thing could go.” Then others in my family read it and had the same reaction, and by the time the guys showed up, I had the same feeling.

The inspiration for the vampire line also apparently came from him.

Agreed on the too much happening aspect of the movie, at points I found it hard to get all that invested in his various, I guess scams essentially. The first hour or so of the movie I loved, but it started to drag a bit, and by the end I felt like one of Marty's put-upon friends & family, "ok, whatever dude." It is really well-done over all, the costumes in particular seemed really great, and I loved Abel Ferrara & could have used more Fran Drescher & Sandra Bernhard.

Kevin O'Leary, didn't work for me at all and it ended up taking away from their confrontation at the match in Tokyo.

Some times the 80s needle-drops had me hooting & hollering ("Order of Death", "I Have the Touch") but all "Everybody Want's to Rule the World" does is make me think that the Dennis Miller Show is starting.

Yeah, I feel like I hear "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" every week if not daily in the wild (it has to be in the CVS/etc. top ten these days), so there was no glow of recognition for me when it played, especially compared to the relative obscurities elsewhere in the movie.

As far as likability, again, would compare Marty with the Josh O'Connor character in The Mastermind.

I didn't mind the '80s soundtrack, it didn't take me out of the movie, but I didn't feel like it particularly added anything — in the way that anachronistic needle-drops have in some other movies (Marie Antoinette still my favorite). I know that the original ending envisioned a later Marty at a Tears for Fears concert, which would have given some narrative grounding for it, but without that it just seemed a bit random.

i quite liked everybody's acting in this but didn't feel like certain scenes lived up to the hype of their headlines (i.e the alleged 40 takes of getting smacked in the ass with a ping pong paddle). then i went home and watched uncut gems and depressed myself. also, the orange ping pong balls didn't seem as important to the plot as the beginning made it seem it would be

I enjoyed it a lot but it felt weaker than Good Time/Uncut Gems. Some of it felt a bit stretched to the point of incredulity.

I spent a lot of this film thinking Alia Shawkat had aged incredibly gracefully

(not that she hasn't, but I was convinced it was her)

i knew her only from the TV show I Love L.A., in which she plays an influencer, so it was amusing to see her in a period piece.

Odessa A'zion, that is

I liked the recklessness of this film.
It took me, like, 20 minutes to adjust to the pacing.
The claustrophobic camera angles. The obstructions in the foreground that constantly block what we're meant to be looking at. It's wild. Much like trying to focus on a ping-pong ball, in fact. The narrative is chronologically linear, but it's constantly shooting off into different sidequests and branches.
A plotline will be intercepted by another plotline which in turn will take a surprise turn into a totally separate plotline until we as an audience find ourselves wondering how to get back to the original branch. Marty's arrogance and self-confidence betrays a life of fully-maximalist chaos where life can very literally collapse down all around him. He's constantly thinking on the spur of the moment, having to make snap decisions. And often he shows off, much like his playing style which is messy and showy.

My friend HATED the soundtrack - thought it was corny and anachronistic. I think it worked well. Marty is a corny, high-octane dude and this yacht-rocky soundtrack, despite being full of "obvious" songs suited the frantic, cokey pace of this film.

I too am tired of people complaining about "unlikeable" characters. Characters aren't meant to be your friends.

Imagine shooting and editing this movie. Fuck me. It's interesting to contrast all this action* with Paltrow's lousy, stiff and static theatre play

*and this is an action movie, not a period drama

It's interesting to contrast all this action* with Paltrow's lousy, stiff and static theatre play

I liked that you could tell it was a terrible play and then got the confirmation of the lousy Times review.

yeah Mamet has really lost it

I just remembered that line about being a vampire, lollll

"Unlikeable" is a lazy and useless criticism, but the protagonist must keep viewers invested in following the story. I suspect the length of the film, Marty's multiple hustles, and period detail are challenging to some viewers. Especially if this is their first Safdie film.

i will watch this eventually but honestly the main reason i haven’t is because i like Chalamet but hate Safdie’s directing style

well you'll certainly find a lot to like and hate

Those are certainly the two main things this film has in abundance.

Fully expected to hate this, so saying it's a 6.0 is, for me, a compliment; there were things I liked. Thought the ping-pong--the shot-making--was great. Not sure how all that was achieved, with a stunt-double or with CGI, but I was quite caught up in the games. I thought whatever connection there was between Chalamet and Paltrow kind of touching. And I liked some of the performances: those two, Kevin Leary (obnoxious on CNN panels), Abel Ferrara (reminded me of William Hickey in Prizzi's Honor).

When it relapsed into the screaming and hysteria I hated about Uncut Gems--most of that in the second half--didn't like it at all. They needed to stick to the ping-pong; all the stuff with the dog and the bowling-alley hustle bloated the film by half-an-hour at least. And I thought the hybrid soundtrack was silly. Commit to one decade or the other--and if you with the '80s, which absolutely could work, show some imagination. Alphaville and Tears for Fears, Jesus.

"Best ping-pong movie ever" a friend messaged me a few days ago--haven't had a chance to ask him, but I think he meant that dismissively. So I did, I think, like it better than him, but I'll stick with The Squid and the Whale as the best ping-pong movie ever; this is more or less tied for second with Goodbye, Columbus. (Not a bad comparison: good moments mixed with hysteria and overkill.)

On Chalamet’s prep: https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2025-12-29/marty-supreme-timothee-chalamet-table-tennis-ping-pong-training

With the smallest and fewest possible alterations to make it fit, I would have liked to have seen this movie released as Dune. The characters and plot align pretty much already.

Walken was already in a ping pong movie as Emperor and weirdly has more imperial bearing in that one than his catatonic appearance in Dune.

(xpost) Thanks for that link--glad to find out that it's closer to real than a complete fabrication. (I think Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason did all their own pool shots for the original Hustler.)

I say this with the greatest affection: If I ctrl-F'd the number of times The Squid and the Whale comes up on ILX I'd say 9 out of 10 times it's clemenza attached to it (Same with me and "Bryan Ferry's hair").

"Best ping-pong movie ever"

This is the best one I've seen, maybe because it's the only one I've seen but anyway I'd give it a solid 4/5.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328258/

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91wT0KNGhKL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

On Chalamet’s prep: https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2025-12-29/marty-supreme-timothee-chalamet-table-tennis-ping-pong-training

― rob, Saturday, January 10, 2026 12:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

thank you, was looking for something like this. confirmed what I’d suspected watching it, which is that the high-level points were mostly CGI

xpost Stars Arata? I might have to keep in mind just for that.

Thought I spotted Sandra Bernhard; I guess she's way past the point where she gets a beginning-of-the-film credit (only in it for a few seconds, anyway).

They should have animated the baby's mouth at the end going "You see, he IS the Kwisatz Haderach!"

What do you mean by "hybrid" soundtrack clemenza? As far as I can recall, the 50s music in this was all diegetic. Would have required a lot more explanation if Marty was listening to Tears for Fears or whatever on the radio, although maybe that could have worked too

I totally get why people were averse to the 80s non-diegetic soundtrack. On a logical level it's inexplicable. A lot of the needle-drops are very well-worn, even as far as movie soundtracks go. But I dunno, it worked for me. Something very powerful about how they're placed. The TfF at the end felt like a musical sigh after so much turbulence

(xpost) I didn't take notice, but you're problably right, all the '50s stuff was off the radio. I just meant the combination of '50s with '80s; I would have preferred one or the other. But, as I posted, the '80s would have been fine (I love what Sofia Coppola did in Marie Antoinette) if they'd simply used some imagination, instead of three or four of the most obvious songs they could have gone for. I did like one thing that I looked up last night: the Korgis' "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime," which was completely new to me. The film stuck to the chorus, the one part of the song I really like.

(I can think of two places where I did love Tears for Fears, although both performed by someone else: the "Mad World" cover in Donnie Darko, and a karaoke "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" in Mr. Robot.)

i knew "everybody wants to rule the world" and "forever young" but wasn't familiar with the songs by peter gabriel, new order, or public image ltd.

oh also i know "everybody's got to learn sometime" but only as the version beck covered on the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind soundtrack. didn't know it was a cover.

I knew "The Perfect Kiss" right away (probably couldn't have named it, but that it was New Order, yes), but not Gabriel or Public Image--so I guess they're a little less obvious, if not, I don't know, the Shop Assistants or the Meat Puppets or "Beat Box." There's no formula for these things, and I end up undercutting myself anytime I veer in that direction. (No Tears for Fears--but wait, I loved them in x, y, and z.) Suffice to say I just didn't like the soundtrack, the Korgis song excepted.

I did not know Odessa A'zion was Pamela Adlon's daughter until a few days after. I also watched I Love LA the same weekend we saw the film and it took a while to realize it was the same actress.

same! it wasn’t until I looked her up that I was like, oh yeah… tbf, I had a similar experience looking up about half of the bit parts (penn jillette and the “dad’s dick” sidetalk guy especially)

Everybody's Got To Learn Sometimes is one of the best aongs ever

didn't recognize Penn Jillette at all

Korgis guys were in 70s proggers Stackridge, which you probably knew

Also a lot of people itt clearly aren't stans of classic 90s jungle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlzAaLOUDa0

^^ that's the version I first heard (dancing in the 90s). And then the Eternal Sunshine version left me waiting for the beat to drop.

The whole 80s-music in MS seems Brechtian, as far as having period-correct design and details but then another element (soundtrack) that lets us know they're not trying to fool us into thinking this is a documentary from the 1950s.

Tyler has a line or two that sound improvised and out-of-sync with the period, one of which is his camaraderie use of the n-word, which doesn't feel of the movie's era. Not unlike when Courtney Love says what I assume is an off-script "as if!" or "not!" or some other 90s phrase in The People vs. Larry Flynt.

I liked Paltrow, calmly and with some amusement, calling out Chalamet on his jewelry scheme.

“dad’s dick” sidetalk guy especially

oh my god THAT'S where i know that guy from?? hhahahaha i love this movie even more now

shoulda italicized instead of underlined whoops, whatever

Everybody's Got To Learn Sometimes is one of the best songs ever

― Jonk Raven (dog latin), Sunday, 11 January 2026 17:25-

He’s not wrong.

Tyler has a line or two that sound improvised and out-of-sync with the period, one of which is his camaraderie use of the n-word, which doesn't feel of the movie's era.

people def said this in 1952

this was funnier than i expected going in. it definitely felt like we were supposed to be laughing at marty's bullshit. i do agree about it being overplotted--the whole bathtub/dog/shootout strand was just some extra chaos that didn't really change where it ended up. truly an insane cast, on imdb i noticed that philippe petit was in what i assume was one of the scenes where they're touring with the globetrotters.

lol, the one anachronism that bugged me was marty saying that something was "in his DNA" about dion instead of in his blood or whatever.

the whole bathtub/dog/shootout strand was just some extra chaos that didn't really change where it ended up

True. But this was essential to the spirit of the film for me. Lynch talks about the "eye of the duck" when it comes to movies - that little thing that makes the film what it is. And I think if the whole bathtub scene hadn't happened it would've just been a straightforward caper about ping pong. It's like the film is screaming "AND ANOTHER THING!" It also lets Rachel into the story a bit more - she would have been underused otherwise

Well, well.

Marty Supreme has shattered one record after another since opening over the holidays. Its latest box office milestone came Tuesday when passing up Leonardo DiCaprio’s rival Oscar contender One Battle After Another to end the day with an estimated cume of $72.27 million, according to A24. From director Paul Thomas Anderson and Warner Bros., One Battle After Another, has earned slightly north of $71.6 million to date domestically (unlike Marty, it’s already playing in the home as its theatrical run winds down.) Internationally, One Battle is still far ahead, earning $154.5 million at the foreign box office for a domestic total of $206.1 million.

But Marty Supreme is only now beginning to roll out in earnest overseas, where it has earned nearly $10 million to date from just a few markets, including a best-ever showing in the U.K. for an A24 pic with north of $8.4 million. Based on early returns, box office experts believe Marty Supreme could do substantial business overseas and end up north of $170 million to $180 million globally, if not higher.

And it is now just days away from overtaking Oscar best-picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once ($77.2 million) to rank as A24’s top-grossing film domestically of all time (and it will ultimately pass up $147 million earned by Everything. And the pic will also become Chalamet’s top-grossing original film this weekend at the global box office when passing up last year’s Oscar contender A Complete Unknown, which grossed $75 million in North America (the Bob Dylan biopic’s global total was $140.4 million).

whoever chose the previews before this had a lot of fun picking 3 ralph fiennes movies in a row: the choral, bone temple, and the new hunger games

that's a pretty impressive cume

Just saw this at MoMI, followed by a Q&A with Ron Bronstein.

Liked it more than I expected going in. As far as the Q&A, Bronstein is really articulate and interesting to listen to and a few people I know who have worked with him said that basically he's a good guy. Would have gone to see his wife present her own film there last weekend but it was already sold out when I clicked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/movies/marty-supreme-jewish-america.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G1A.zxkv.VJbx6dXOu1ks&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Is Marty Supreme good for Jewish Americans or bad . This writer says good but acknowledges those who differ

Definitely thought of both The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and What Makes Sammy Run?

Really liked this way with chaos in this and Uncut Gems. That's what Safdie films have really, what distinguishes them and why it keeps me there even if I looked at my watch 3/4 times waiting for this to end.

Entertaining, which comes with this emptiness, but that chaotic quality is what makes them linger in the mind after. Did laugh at the very lazy 80s soundtrack.

Like this was a very American sports film too. There has to be a hustle and make it yourself as make believe element. I love table tennis (and most racquet sports) and love to watch it at the Olympics, but I definitely was relieved it when the chaos started after he got back from the tournament.

The ending was kinda disappointing, wanted him to get killed somehow.

"Best ping-pong movie ever"

This is the best one I've seen, maybe because it's the only one I've seen but anyway I'd give it a solid 4/5.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328258/

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91wT0KNGhKL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

― I walked with a nimby (Matt #2), Saturday, 10 January 2026 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah its really good. Its on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG9x5S9T4N8

I e never seen a Safdie film. Their whole vibe puts me off. I’m willing to try though. Is uncut gems the best of the bunch? I started Good Time once but was just wasn’t up for feeling g stressed and shitty

Start anywhere. They're consistent, for better or worse. Each depends on a strong male lead performance.

Each depends on a strong male lead performance.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 25 January 2026 05:15 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the pleasures of being robbed and heaven knows what would like a word

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jan/24/ping-pong-american-revival-marty-supreme-table-tennis

Table tennis is a fantastic sport but what the above doesn't say is the domination by the East (mainly China) means that its highly unlikely that it goes anywhere for now.

the pleasures of being robbed and heaven knows what would like a word

― flopson,

I meant the last three Safdies, guess I wasn't clear.

Uh oh: https://pagesix.com/2026/01/26/hollywood/the-teenage-sex-scene-that-sparked-safdie-brothers-infamous-rift/

Any derisive mentions of "ping pong" (not just here but all over the place) leave me thinking that I would have been much less likely to see this if it had been about baseball, basketball, or, say, wrestling.

Its the Marty Supreme movie not the Marty Basketball movie

xp Wallace Beery IS Marty Supreme

i only know about this movie from this thread and right now but i’m ready to check it. and thx to all for the spoiler shielding!

The scene where he’s playing ping pong on top of a moving train is one of the most WTF of recent cinema.

Uh oh: https://pagesix.com/2026/01/26/hollywood/the-teenage-sex-scene-that-sparked-safdie-brothers-infamous-rift/

i know i can't expect better from page six but "teenage sex scene" is an awful way to describe what happened. That is fucking assault involving a minor that happened on camera and in full view of both safdies (i don't care if the article makes it sound like Benny was just an innocent bystander - he was a co-director)

that is some goddamn bullshit on the safdies' part

and the whole team, jesus christ

Just awful :-( fuck them

is there just fucking zero regulations and standards on Hollywood sets these days or has it always been thus?

you’re asking about Hollywood

not non-union NYC productions

I thought this was pretty good. At first I was put off a little by the songs, which I thought maybe a cheaty way to accord a little more accessibility to an otherwise uneasy movie, or even a stunt a la Tarantino's (good!) use of Bowie in "Inglorious Basterds," but in the end I think they mostly enhanced this sort of '80s-hustle, breathlessly go-go-go quality to the whole thing. On that front, you know what movie it sometimes reminded me of, at least a little sideways? "Risky Business"!

And of course I thought of "The Hustler," too, for obvious reasons, but also kept thinking of "The Mastermind," another movie with a few similarities despite being temperamentally and tonally its opposite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwVWD4yvObU

Wow.