The end of the year always brings a number of films that appear to be exclusively vying for awards. Audiences have gotten incredibly lucky in 2025, as several high-profile awards contenders are also extremely captivating.
The most recent is Marty Supreme, nominated for a number of Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Boasting an impressive price tag of $70 million and headlined by Timothée Chalamet, one of the most promising movie stars of the modern era, Marty Supreme is both entertaining to a fault and as messy as its central protagonist.
Directed by Josh Safdie, this film explores the rise of ping-pong as an international sport in the 1950s. Chalamet stars as Marty Mauser, an extremely ambitious young man seeking to become the greatest table tennis player in the world, willing to go to any lengths and take advantage of any opportunity — be it from friends, family, or rivals — to get there. Some of the people Marty leaves in his wake include Odessa A’zion as Marty’s childhood friend and lover Rachel, Gwyneth Paltrow as retired movie star Kay Stone, and Tyler Okonma (better known as Tyler, the Creator) as Marty’s friend Wally.
The best aspect of this movie is undoubtedly Chalamet’s performance; he continues to prove himself as one of the most versatile actors of his generation. This is his second Best Actor nomination in two years — well-deserved for this performance. Chalamet truly makes Marty his own, delivering a moving performance in almost every scene. Marty is, in no uncertain terms, an asshole, and Chalamet never shies away from making him deeply unsympathetic. This is a man who screws over everyone who gets close to him, whether it is by getting his best friend pregnant or stealing jewelry from an actress to pay off a fine. Despite everything, we can’t help but root for Marty to get to Japan and win a rematch against table tennis champion Koto Endo. The worst thing about him is that he plays table tennis with the shakehand grip favored by Westerners, instead of the obviously better penhold grip pioneered by Chinese players (coming from an Asian family, I have strong opinions about this).
The supporting cast does what they need to, even if most of them are underused. A’zion’s performance is impressive, but even she is absent for long stretches of runtime. That’s a bit of a problem with Marty Supreme: no one in the supporting cast gets much time to step out of the shadow of Chalamet’s performance. He’s in every single scene, so the supporting cast only appears based on when Marty is with them. Some of them will appear for just one scene and then disappear for an entire hour or longer before popping up again. While this works for some of the cast, such as Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and real-life table tennis champion Koto Kawaguchi, other characters are left on the cutting-room floor.
The other big issue with the film comes down to the script. Overall, the writing in this film is great, but Safdie and his co-writer Ronald Bronstein don’t do enough to punish Marty for his actions. Part of the reason audiences become so invested in Marty throughout the film is not just that they wanted him to succeed, but also that they want to see him fail; they want to see all of his terrible actions catch up to him so that he can recognize them and improve as a person. There wasn’t nearly enough of that toward the end of the movie.
There’s a very interesting idea that the film explores with the conflict between Marty and Rachel, who he impregnates at the start of the film in a wild opening credits sequence. He wants to get to Tokyo and redeem himself by winning a championship, and she wants him to stay in New York and be a proper father to his son. The movie takes an interesting stance by saying that she is right: that following this dream isn’t worth it if Marty continues being an asshole who screws over everyone he meets. But, in the end, Marty gets his rematch, he wins, and only then does he go home to Rachel. It doesn’t feel like he’s truly changed as much as he just got what he wanted, making all his terrible actions throughout the movie worth it. I would’ve rather seen him get more comeuppance for them.
Overall, Marty Supreme is entertaining. Just like its titular character, it’s a bit of a mess, but it has a heart and passion to it that is easily identifiable. This is definitely an Oscar-worthy film, and Chalamet definitely gives an Oscar-worthy performance.
