Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme mania has been unavoidable these last few weeks. A24’s marketing has been on point, from the surprise New York Film Festival world premiere screening on October 6th to Timothée Chalamet’s chronically online promo blitz featuring humorous IG Lives, surprise drops announced on his Stories, and experimental short-film teasers. All of it has been building toward exclusive in-person events, like showing the first 30 minutes of Marty Supreme to the earliest fans to arrive on location and a full pop-up for the now-iconic Nahmias Marty Supreme windbreaker jacket, which had already been teased by “at the top of their game” celebrities in the marketing lead-up. It is impossible to stop hearing about one of the most hyped titles of 2025. With these lofty expectations now dropped on its shoulders, could it possibly live up to them?

From the title card drop of Marty Supreme, it is evident that Josh Safdie is “dreaming big”. This is a man who knows how to craft his own signature tone perfectly, as he once again crafts such a bold, unique, and hilarious opening title card drop that commands your attention. Safdie reteams with co-writer and editor Ronald Bronstein, this time without brother Benny (who showcased his own sports biopic earlier this fall), to bring us the exhilarating Marty Supreme. If you’re somehow unaware, the film follows a young man striving for greatness who is willing to go to hell and back to achieve his goals. After all of that hype and anticipation, once the credits hit, I could tell Marty Supreme left the audience energized. People were buzzing about the absolute madness they just watched unfold, and for good reason. 

First things first, Marty Supreme is hilarious. Timothée Chalamet continues to reinvent himself as an actor, proving himself capable of delivering any kind of performance you could want from him. He can be a stoic leader in Dune, he can play the lovable sweetheart in Little Women, he can tear at your heartstrings in Beautiful Boy, and he can even embody iconic singers in Wonka and A Complete Unknown. But in Marty Supreme, this man proves he has humor and comedic timing down. Some of the one-liners he gets are absolutely killer, ranging from absurdist humor to racial jokes to sexual obscenities to every wild thing in between. Timothée Chalamet is straight-up Marty Mautastic in Marty Supreme. Sure, Marty is incredibly annoying and someone you would probably find a douchebag if you knew him in real life, but Chalamet in the pursuit of greatness is something that you can’t ever look away from. He has this perfect blend of unshakeable confidence and maddening stubbornness, the kind of arrogant edge you weirdly cannot look away from. He keeps hurling himself into chaos he could totally sidestep, but he commits to every reckless move with such conviction that you fully buy it.

In addition to Timmy, the rest of the ensemble is really fun as well. I’ve really enjoyed Odessa A’Zion’s rise over the last few months. She was the shining light of Until Dawn, delivering some of the best laughs and playing really well into that final-girl type narrative. In I Love LA, A’Zion steals the limelight again and shows just how well she can play a high-energy individual. In Marty Supreme, she does play a variation of that character, but one who is a bit more intelligent in how she manipulates the people around her. She gets some great laughs from the audience and even has a few key moments where she gets to show off her dramatic chops. She is undeniably a name to keep an eye on for future projects.

But leading up to this movie’s release, one of the most talked-about aspects was how insane the casting is. The timing is perfect, considering this is the year the Academy Awards are introducing casting as a brand-new category. This movie makes a strong case for why it deserves to be one of the first five nominees ever. It is not just for the pitch-perfect casting of Timmy in the lead or jumping on the rising star power of A’Zion, but for plucking such random actors and finding roles that suit them so well. Kevin O’Leary playing a douchebag millionaire… I mean, can we be more on-the-nose in the best way possible? Tyler, The Creator as the goofy friend who is always the center of attention in whatever room he’s in? Again… pitch perfect. And since this is a Josh Safdie movie, you already know he is pulling in random celebrities from every corner of the internet and giving them just the right moments to shine.

Now for some flaws, because every movie has them: Josh Safdie does not know how to write women. We saw how one-note they could be in Uncut Gems, and we know how uninterested he can be in women in Good Time. But here in Marty Supreme, both of the female leads feel pretty underwritten in a borderline derogatory way. One of them is basically there just so the main character can sleep with her, and the other has no real exploration whatsoever. The movie hints at dreams and goals she might have, but her only real purpose always seems to be to serve in Marty’s crazy plots to find the next buck. I would have loved to see Safdie and Bronstein’s screenplay give any of the leading women some agency to their characters. Another critique I have is how unlikable Marty can be over the two and a half hours. As I said before, this guy is just such a little shit that I struggled to find myself actually rooting for him to achieve his massive goals; oftentimes, I was hoping for any of the awful situations he puts himself in to blow up in his face and fail. 

But despite some issues I have with the writing, this is an extremely well-made movie. Marty Supreme moves like a missile: relentless in its journey, never giving you a second to breathe. The anxiety the film sparks just keeps tightening as it gets further and further into the plot. From the atmospheric, eclectic score by Daniel Lopatin to the typical Safdie-style suffocating visual choices in the cinematography provided by Darius Khondji, Marty Supreme is 100% the movie fans were hoping it would be. It is chaotic, hilarious, stressful, and absolutely thrilling, but I am not confident that this is the type of film that wins over new fans to the Safdie camp. It has the same vibe as Uncut Gems, just reskinned into a movie about ping-pong with Timothée Chalamet replacing Adam Sandler’s degenerate sports gambler. Marty Supreme is a comedy, a panic attack, a sports saga, but above all, a new Josh Safdie flick delivering exactly what his fans crave. 

8/10