Is Marty Supreme the next great sports movie?
NEXT EPISODE: In a new series for 2026, I'll be writing about film, TV and whatever tickles my fancy. This is about MARTY SUPREME.
In 2026, I’m going to occasionally dabble away from sport and into films, television and pop culture moments that tickle my fancy. Consider this a test run. Feedback on this would be most welcome.
Josh Safdie’s long-anticipated Marty Supreme feels like a natural extension of what he and his brother Benny built with Good Time and Uncut Gems. The same ultra high-intensity, pressure cooker of emotion and movement set to a gritty New York backdrop, placing you in claustrophobically tight spaces and with the incessant overlay of people speaking over each other and loud noises.
For anyone familiar with their catalogue, it should come as no surprise that Marty is just as relentless, albeit slightly more cartoonish in its action, hot-stepping from one episode of outlandish carnage to another at breakneck pace.
What separates Marty, however, is it can be placed firmly into the category of sports film, with the story based loosely on real-life ping pong player Marty Mauser, with the degree of filmmaker’s creativity on this film, set across a nine-month period, to the nth degree.
It follows Mauser, played by Timothée Chalamet, an American table tennis star who’s toiling at his uncle’s shoe store as a means to an end to fund his ambition to become the greatest player in the world. From the outset we’re hammered with just how relentless Marty is in achieving his dreams. The film follows a trajectory of Mauser firstly at the British Open table tennis tournament, where he blitzes through the early rounds, his lofty standards clashing with table tennis authorities when he laments the quality of his sleeping quarters and accordingly checks in to The Ritz, racking up a substantial bill on the table tennis association’s name. Mauser clearly sees himself as a star, acts like a star and has an unshakeable confidence that nothing can stand in the way of. That was before coming up against a Japanese wall in the deftly talented and deaf Koto Endo, who seems to have Marty’s number.
The table action scenes are terrific and parallel the relentless pace of the film. From the early rounds where tables are stacked upon tables and players barely have room to swing their bats, to the wider open tables in the finals where the darkened, smoky arenas artfully highlight the plight and pressure of the players.
From that initial tournament, the film takes you into a different stratosphere as Marty will stop at nothing to fund his travel to the World Cup in Japan later that year and meet Endo on home soil. From concocting an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow, the wife of a rich pen magnate, played annoyingly well by Kevin O’Leary, through to hustling at a bowling alley with Tyler, the Creator, through to searching for the dog of a cash-rich but deathly dangerous mafioso, the film tallies through episode after episode of Marty’s euphoria of winning his chance at Japan, the inevitable pain of letting it slip through his fingertips, and his almost sadistic fortitude to pause, plan and try again. He will simply stop at nothing to play in Japan, throwing out all ethics and morals, blind to the reality that surrounds his situation.
Of course, the story doesn’t pan out as expected and he’s delivered one final blow on the eve of the tournament, but we are afforded one final showdown with Endo, who doesn’t utter a word all film and is played by real-life player Koto Kawaguchi, which, once again, is shot tremendously. The table tennis match scenes might be few and far between, but they are enthralling and absorbing enough to stand it with any sports action moments across other genres. And you preposterously end up rooting for this kid, who’s left the woman he impregnated alone in a New York hospital just so he can get spanked, even in the most literal sense, with a table tennis paddle.
At its most derivative essence, Marty Supreme is a quality sports movie. It harnesses that motive - aiming to dream big and reach the pinnacle of your sport with, and adds typical Safdie chaos in eschewing all moral bankruptcy to fuel this ambition.
Mauser is a deeply flawed, immoral anchor to work towards that vision. Josh is a big basketball fan. It’s easy to imagine what Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant might have become if that same impenetrable desire to win had been cocooned inside 1950s New York ping pong halls.