I don’t know what other people are after when they watch movies and television. Some people use pop culture to escape the narrow confines of their daily life and only want to be entertained. Others just want to unwind at the end of the day with their brain on low-power mode. More and more people (specifically in America) struggle with silence and need sound in the background while they fold laundry or doomscroll across the wasteland of Facebook.
Me? I don’t care whether a film makes me feel good or bad as long as it makes me feel something. If a movie gives you nothing, not a chuckle, a tear, or even a dash of annoyance for how terrible it is, then the film has broken the unwritten contract we make with it: to use our precious time for something, even ephemerally, worthwhile. As much as I wasn’t in love with the plot or dialogue of the new Avatar, I was still taken to a distant planet for three hours and given free rein to luxuriate in director James Cameron’s imagination. Or on the contract-breaking end of the spectrum, the Minecraft movie made me feel like a slack-jawed consumer clapping at a chicken jockey.
There’s a new school of filmmakers that take that contract with their audience seriously, but they don’t want to give you feelings of awe or heartwarming affirmations. Instead, they come at you with anxious intensity, flop sweat, and the feeling of tightly clenched teeth holding back wave after wave of panic attacks. Ari Aster and his cinema of awkward injustice is a perfect example of this, but no other filmmakers have the uncanny ability to make me want to close my eyes and do breath work while practicing mindfulness more than Josh and Benny Safdie.
From the ticking clock intensity of Good Time to the relentless tension in the depths of the Diamond District in Uncut Gems, the Safdies obviously want you to leave the theater feeling some kind of way, but I think they’re much more interested in crafting emotion in the moment and keeping their audience gripping their seats like they’re in a plane without power. In 2025, the Safdies took a (hopefully short) break from one another’s creative partnership, with Benny making The Rock’s stab at awards recognition with the surprisingly gentle The Smashing Machine, while Josh crafted the insanely stressful epic, ping-pong odyssey Marty Supreme.
And I feel perfectly comfortable saying that Marty Supreme is a straight masterpiece with what is easily the finest performance from Timothée Chalamet’s relatively new career. Do I ever want to sit through it again? No, but I will because I’m softly masochistic and obsessed with the technical wizardry on display. But, man, if you’re only into movies that help you relax, stay far the hell away from this one.
related story
2026 releases suggest cinema’s not dead yet
I keep waiting to become more cynical about movies as a film critic. Every week I read one think piece after the next about how cinema is dying and no good movies are made anymore, but 2025 was…
Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a deeply unpleasant table tennis prodigy who is so profoundly unhappy at his station in life that he will do anything, screw over anyone and lie, cheat, and steal his way into glory. Marty Supreme is his episodic journey into the heart of darkness where he comes into contact with glamorous, yet faded movie stars, teeth-gnashing gangsters, shotgun-toting farmers, the high stakes world of professional ping pong, and, just maybe, unconditional love.
You won’t ever like Marty, but you’ll be in awe of his depthless narcissism and quotidian restlessness. He moves through the world thinking he’s the shark, but unconsciously terrified he might be the remora on its body. Marty cannot survive in still water and will ignite endless depth charges just to make sure the ocean is still there.
Thirty minutes into Marty Supreme I was in love with Josh Safdie’s technical brilliance and the clarity of his grimy, 1950s vision. After an hour and a half, I was exhausted and had completely moved away from exhilaration into a numbed weariness. I didn’t need another story of a horrible white guy burning down all he touches in his pursuit of some bastardized and quixotic delusion of the American dream. After 150 minutes and as the closing credits hit, I wasn’t just back in love… I was swooning at the brilliance of Safdie, Chalamet, and every other brilliant mind involved in this generational work.
That’s because Safdie is such an assured filmmaker that he knows the film is exhausting and that Marty is the absolute worst. He wants us to see the hollow promise of the American dream and be heartbroken for what could have been. Marty spends almost the entire film branding his own mythology, telling anyone who will listen about his fearless self-reliance and bootstrap determinism, while climbing on every pair of shoulders he can reach. This is the America of Marty Supreme and the hypocrisy of its promise.
Marty Supreme is about ping pong in the same way that Apocalypse Now is about war. Somehow, Josh Safdie has made a movie that doesn’t just capture the highs and lows of a life, but the emotional undercurrents as well. You feel absolutely everything Marty is going through, while still mostly despising him. By the end, Safdie leaves it up to the audience to root for or against Mr. Mauser and his dream of ping pong dominance.
Whichever way you’re inclined doesn’t matter. What’s important is that a movie made you question your moral compass and reevaluate your own self-mythologizing. That’s a remarkable achievement even if it’s something that most audiences don’t want from art anymore. Just like Marty, the film dares to ask directly: “What is it that you want and what will you do to get it?” You don’t need to answer out loud.
Grade: A
