Marty Supreme review: the ping pong movie is very stressful | The VergeSkip to main contentThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.The VergeThe Verge logo.TechReviewsScienceEntertainmentAIHamburger Navigation ButtonThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.Hamburger Navigation ButtonNavigation DrawerThe VergeThe Verge logo.Login / Sign UpcloseCloseSearchTechExpandAmazonAppleFacebookGoogleMicrosoftSamsungBusinessCreatorsMobilePolicySecurityTransportationReviewsExpandLaptopsPhonesHeadphonesTabletsSmart HomeSmartwatchesSpeakersDronesScienceExpandSpaceEnergyEnvironmentHealthEntertainmentExpandGamesTV ShowsMoviesAudioAIVerge ShoppingExpandBuying GuidesDealsGift GuidesSee All ShoppingCarsExpandElectric CarsAutonomous CarsRide-sharingScootersOther TransportationFeaturesVideosExpandYouTubeTikTokInstagramPodcastsExpandDecoderThe VergecastVersion HistoryNewslettersExpandThe Verge DailyInstallerVerge DealsNotepadOptimizerRegulatorThe StepbackArchivesStoreSubscribeFacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSThe VergeThe Verge logo.The ping pong movie is very stressfulComments DrawerCommentsLoading commentsGetting the conversation ready...EntertainmentCloseEntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All EntertainmentFilmCloseFilmPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All FilmThe ping pong movie is very stressfulTense and often cruel, Marty Supreme might still be the Safdies’ gentlest movie to date.by Kevin NguyenCloseKevin NguyenFeatures EditorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Kevin NguyenUpdated Dec 1, 2025, 4:59 PM UTCLinkShare Courtesy of A24EntertainmentCloseEntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All EntertainmentFilmCloseFilmPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All FilmThe ping pong movie is very stressfulTense and often cruel, Marty Supreme might still be the Safdies’ gentlest movie to date.by Kevin NguyenCloseKevin NguyenFeatures EditorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Kevin NguyenUpdated Dec 1, 2025, 4:59 PM UTCLinkShare Courtesy of A24Kevin NguyenCloseKevin NguyenFeatures EditorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Kevin Nguyen is a features editor at The Verge, where he publishes award-winning stories about labor, business, and policing. Previously, he was a senior editor at GQ.LinkShareThe origins of table tennis have often obscured its influence — it was literally designed to be the diminutive form of tennis, after all. But the idea of “spin” first originated with ping pong; politically, it would become the thing that opened up negotiations between the US and China under Nixon. There are gestures to this in Marty Supreme, but the new film from Josh Safdie is more interested in the sport as a fixture for outcasts in the ’50s Lower East Side. Loosely based on the true story of Jewish table tennis underdog Marty Reisman, Marty Supreme arrives eager and ready to unnerve you.“Loosely” is the key word here, unless it turns out the real-life Reisman was a real piece of shit. This version, Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), is as maddening as they come. Anyone who has seen the Safdie brothers’ previous movies Good Time or Uncut Gems will recognize the template: a man who constantly makes selfish choices, every bad decision an excuse to meet a strange character and sprint through the gorgeously shot streets of New York City.Courtesy of A24Like Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler before him, Chalamet is charming but not too charming, driven by his belief that he can become a table tennis champion if he could only scrape together the dough. The film’s second act is possessed by Mauser’s need to acquire the cash for a plane ticket to get him to Tokyo. All his motives are informed by his fixation on beating his Japanese rival Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi, who in real life is a Japanese national Deaf table tennis champion). Every transgression that follows is an escalation. Each character — a friend, family member, or lover — is quickly betrayed in pursuit of Marty’s ping pong ambitions.The Safdies know how to portray this kind of character, and they also know how to draw that performance out of their leading men. They turned Edward Cullen into a dirtbag; they turned Billy Madison into a dirtbag. Paul Atreides? Willy Wonka? The twink from Call Me by Your Name? All pretty good dirtbags too. As Mauser, Chalamet projects a deluded fool, a reluctant father-to-be, and an arrogant hustler. But even through the pencil mustache and thick eyebrows, Chalamet’s charisma grounds the character — or at least prevents him from being too hateable.A number of other colorful figures populate the film. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a movie star past her days of fame; her asshole tycoon husband is played somewhat unconvincingly by Kevin O’Leary, who Shark Tank fans will know as “Mr. Wonderful.” More impressive surprise turns come from Tyler Okonma (aka Tyler, The Creator) as a fellow ping pong hustler and Abel Ferrara as a funny stereotype of a gangster you might find in an Abel Ferrara movie. These are nice novelties, but the focus is singularly on Chalamet.As a Safdie movie, Marty Supreme made me crave something new. There’s nothing wrong with a director chasing the same themes or ideas, but this latest outing felt like more stepping backward than forward, or even sideways. (Even this fall’s other “unraveling” character, Josh O’Connor’s much gentler thief in The Mastermind, is a fresher take on an idea the Safdies love.) Chalamet might make a convincing character study of self-rationalization and delusion, but how different is that from Pattinson’s and Sandler’s versions of this? And it doesn’t help that, thanks to the baggy two-and-a-half-hour runtime, this film isn’t as focused or strong as Good Time or Uncut Gems.Courtesy of A24In fact, without giving much away, the only thing that really delineates Marty Supreme from this Safdie trilogy of stress tests is its ending — easily the least satisfying act of the film. There are copious scenes of ping pong throughout, but by the time Mauser gets to his final match, the stakes have been deflated by its main character already having suffered a pride-shattering humiliation. The movie maybe should have ended there but instead proceeds on to fulfill the big showdown you might expect from a more traditional sports film. It’s a kinder finale than we’re used to seeing from the Safdies; it’s also a lot cornier.The Safdie brothers split for their most recent films. Josh directed Marty; Benny directed The Smashing Machine, a portrait of early UFC fighter Mark Kerr, a kind of transformative vehicle for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It’s not hard to see them as similar projects: A24-backed period-specific sports movies starring household names, with expensive needle drops and an odd preoccupation with Japan. They even have similarly unsatisfying endings.Marty Supreme at least has the effective thriller momentum over the inert Smashing Machine. But they both suffer from the same misguided assumptions. Perhaps it is more compelling to reckon with a sports gambler than an athlete. Maybe it’s easier to judge a character by their vices than by their strengths. But probably of all our contemporary filmmakers, it’s just boring to see the Safdie brothers go soft on their main characters.Marty Supreme is in theaters December 25, 2025.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Kevin NguyenCloseKevin NguyenFeatures EditorPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Kevin NguyenEntertainmentCloseEntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All EntertainmentFilmCloseFilmPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All FilmMore in EntertainmentInfluencers are souring on AI, but some fans are cashing inNetflix kills casting from phonesDisney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max are all over 60 percent off for Cyber MondayYou need to read the treatise on spacing out, Bored and BrilliantThe indie web is here to make the internet weird again8Verge ScoreI’ve tested the latest Switch 2 controllers, and this one is the bestInfluencers are souring on AI, but some fans are cashing inKat Tenbarge12:00 PM UTCNetflix kills casting from phonesJess Weatherbed10:20 AM UTCDisney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max are all over 60 percent off for Cyber MondayBrandon RussellNov 30You need to read the treatise on spacing out, Bored and BrilliantTerrence O'BrienNov 30The indie web is here to make the internet weird againStevie BonifieldNov 30I’ve tested the latest Switch 2 controllers, and this one is the bestCameron FaulknerNov 29Advertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native adTop Stories2:00 PM UTCThe race to AGI-pill the popeAn hour agoThese great Cyber Monday tech deals will likely be gone tomorrow12:00 PM UTCInfluencers are souring on AI, but some fans are cashing in3:00 PM UTCIBM CEO Arvind Krishna says there is no AI bubble after allVideo1:00 PM UTCA nationwide internet age verification plan is sweeping CongressNov 30It doesn’t end at NeuralinkThe VergeThe Verge logo.FacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSContactTip UsCommunity GuidelinesArchivesAboutEthics StatementHow We Rate and Review ProductsCookie SettingsTerms of UsePrivacy NoticeCookie PolicyLicensing FAQAccessibilityPlatform Status© 2025 Vox Media, LLC. 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Marty Supreme, the latest offering from Josh and Benny Safdie, is a relentlessly stressful cinematic experience, arguably the most demanding entry in their increasingly focused trilogy of character studies. Kevin Nguyen’s review highlights the film’s core tension: a portrait of obsessive self-delusion, channeled through the increasingly chaotic story of Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), an ambitious table tennis player driven to the brink by a desperate desire to reach the Tokyo Olympics. Nguyen establishes the film’s central premise – the exploration of outcasts and the sport of ping pong as a backdrop for a deeply flawed individual’s spiraling ambitions – and correctly identifies the film’s repetitive structure, drawing parallels to the Safdie brothers’ previous work while simultaneously acknowledging their effectiveness. The review excels in portraying Chalamet’s performance as a convincing and uncomfortable study in self-rationalization and delusion, skillfully describing his transformation into a “deluded fool,” “reluctant father-to-be,” and an “arrogant hustler.”

Nguyen’s analysis of the supporting cast is astute, noting the deliberate casting choices, such as Gwyneth Paltrow as a faded movie star and Kevin O’Leary as an unlikely antagonist. The inclusion of Tyler Okonma (a.k.a. Tyler, the Creator) and Abel Ferrara adds further texture to the film’s milieu. However, the review’s greatest strength lies in its dissection of the Safdie brothers' directorial choices and their impact on the narrative. The extended runtime (over two and a half hours), a frequent point of criticism, is justified by Nguyen as contributing to the film’s exhausting momentum. He accurately observes that the film's ambitions, particularly its pursuit of a satisfying resolution, ultimately fall short, leading to an anticlimactic finale. The review effectively communicates that despite the Safdie brothers’ proven ability to extract compelling performances from their actors, in this instance, the ambition outpaces the execution, resulting in a film that feels both prolonged and ultimately, somewhat hollow.

Ultimately, Nguyen’s assessment reveals a frustration with a film that, despite its technical merits and Chalamet’s performance, fails to deliver on the intense promise established by the Safdie brothers' previous successes. The review skillfully uses the structure of the film itself – its relentless pace, obsessive focus on a singular character, and ultimately, its unresolved narrative – to underscore its core message: Marty Supreme is not a particularly rewarding cinematic experience, but rather a demanding exercise in observing a character consumed by self-deception. It's a film best appreciated for its uncomfortable and challenging aspects, and perhaps, for illustrating the limitations inherent in the Safdie brothers’ frequent thematic explorations.