Marty Reisman was a rather notorious figure from the late 1940s in New York City’s underground table tennis (aka ping pong) world as a twentysomething shark who lured in unsuspecting amateur players and made big bets on himself at Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club. Later in 1958 and 1960, he would become U.S. Men’s Singles champion in the rather obscure sport, among many other titles the motormouth accumulated in his life. He was nicknamed “The Needle” for his quick-talking wit and slender build.
Loosely inspired by Reisman and a book he wrote about that period as a young man supremely confident in his skills in the game, Marty Supreme director/co-writer Josh Safdie has made a supremely confident movie about a fast-talking, brash, talented, often arrogant young man named Marty Mauser. He longed to ditch his uncle’s shoe store for what he was sure would be true glory in the world of ping pong, an entity more popular around the globe than in America, where it was a bit of a joke in postwar 1952, the year this movie is set. .
In other words, Marty is a piece of work. He’s surrounded by a domineering mom, a pregnant girlfriend who also happens to be married, a need to make cash and most importantly a belief in himself that he could become dominant in a sport that does have credibility only outside of NYC and America and where he can rise to the top.
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What Safdie, and his co-writer, co-producer, and co-editor Ronald Bronstein have made is decidedly not a biopic but rather a fictionalized portrait of a “what makes Sammy run”-type of character from the Lower East Side of NYC. He scavenges for money — and yes, happiness — in any way he knows how. With the perfect casting of Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet as its title star, you go along for this wild ride of a young man who’s in a hurry but sometimes is his own worst enemy. Chalamet is, as you might expect, just sensational in the role, every bit as commanding as Adam Sandler was in another kinetic deep-NYC film of Safdie’s (done with brother Benny), 2019’s similarly manic but brilliant Uncut Gems, about a man trying to survive by wit and grit in the city’s Diamond District. Marty Supreme unmistakably is the work of the same filmmaker, who seems drawn to the fringe of New Yorkers living out a dream on the precipice of a nightmare.
At a Q&A after the L.A. screening I attended, Chalamet opined on who might have played this role in an earlier time, settling perhaps on Al Pacino. Maybe, the younger “Dog Day” Pacino would have nailed it, but this film and character go back earlier to 1961 and Paul Newman’s “Fast” Eddie Felson, traveling pool hall to pool hall taking in the unsuspecting opponents until it all collapsed. Marty Supreme is Chalamet’s The Hustler, and watching it play out I kept hoping this one was in black-and-white scope as well, but with the dark skills of cinematographer Darius Khonji, we are in good hands. You can just smell this environment and this era, and Chalamet, like Newman before him, is not afraid one bit to play a character who can be so stuck on his own driving dream as to be thoroughly unlikeable at points.
This is a new-age movie star playing a completely un-movie star role. It will be interesting to see how his younger fans of Wonka and Dune try to warm up to this guy. It doesn’t matter. Chalamet (who also is a producer) deserves the props here, going far beyond nailing the sometimes self-obsessed young Dylan in NY circa a decade later in A Complete Unknown, to capture the adventures of a young man desperate to show the world he is the real deal — even if, like Felson, still waters don’t run that deep.
But boy, Marty has a way with a paddle.
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Safdie has populated this film with more than 100 colorful characters out of the time and place, with an anxious pace that never lets up for the a bit-long 2½-hour running time. Chief among them is Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion), pregnant and married and a perfectly matched girlfriend for Marty. She’s the only one in his life pretty much exactly like him, a hustler at heart as well who ratchets up her emotions to extreme levels, ready to take a chance for something different. Then there is Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a faded actress who gave it all up for a more secure (she thinks) life with mover and shaker ink pen mogul husband, Milton Rockwell (Shark Tank’s villain Kevin O’Leary). She comes into Marty’s life as the kid tries to convince Rockwell to sponsor him, and take his act to new heights with money he desperately needs to go global. That these two disparate souls get together in a transactional affair seems perfect, one with an ascending dream of the spotlight, one on the other end of it.
There is so much happening here as Marty finds avenues for his unique ping-pong talents beyond hustling locals out of their money. He even finds himself the opening act on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters at one point (this actually did happen to Marty Reisman). Another memorable story thread starts with Marty’s bathtub crashing through the floor and directly smashing the ceiling and on to the older resident and his dog in the apartment below. That leads to a madcap instant job for Marty and his friend Wally (Tyler Okonma aka Tyler, The Creator in an effective acting debut) to take the traumatized pooch to the vet in another move that doesn’t go well but serves as a thread for this tale to go back to a few times with increasingly harrowing stakes.
Then there is the table tennis as Marty faces off with competitors with worldwide chops, notably his main nemesis, Koto Endo (played by real-life National Deaf Table Tennis champion Koto Kawaguchi), who serves as sort of a Minnesota Fats opponent (sorry for the repeated The Hustler analogies) for Marty. Chalamet clearly developed some impressive paddle talents on his own to be believable here, though aided by CGI as well, and these sequences are effective as the film jet sets to London, Paris, Tokyo, even Egypt as Marty schemes his climb into the big time.
In addition to Chalamet, Marty Supreme is boosted by superb performances all around. A’zion no doubt is a breakout talent, mesmerizing on screen here and in another little-seen 2025 gem called Pools, where she really proves she is one to watch (try to find that one on Amazon or Apple and watch her simply soar; she also has supporting role in hit new series I Love LA). Hard to believe that Paltrow has been off screen for seven years, but this return in a supporting role is worth the wait; she plays a character who also returns to acting in one particularly memorable rehearsal for a Broadway play that also gets to feature Fred Hechinger as a co-star and none other than David Mamet as the director. Paltrow hasn’t lost a beat and makes her unlikely seduction by Chalamet one that feels authentic for a woman trying to recover what she has lost in her life.
Perhaps the real acting find here is O’Leary, the bad-guy shark from Shark Tank who is one of many non-acting finds Safdie likes to pepper his casts with. He is right on the money and perfection as a businessman who could be Marty’s angel but turns into his devil as well. This guy has a future. Fran Drescher is effective in all-too-brief scenes as Marty’s rather domineering mother, and with a cast of 100-plus speaking roles, casting director Jennifer Venditti really delivers the goods on every level, a triumph of professional and street casting if ever there was one.
All the production elements are top-notch, including Miyako Bellizzi’s period costumes, Daniel Lopatin’s swell musical score that hits all the right notes in ping-ponging from one mood to another, and shout-out to veteran production designer Jack Fisk for re-creating the Lower East Side circa 1950s along with more glamorous surroundings required.
Producers are Eli Bush, Anthony Katagas, Chalamet, Safdie, and Bronstein.
Title: Marty Supreme
Distributor: A24 Films
Release date: December 25, 2025
Director: Josh Safdie
Screenwriters: Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler Okonma, Kevin O’ Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Emory Cohen, Odessa A’zion, Koto Kawaguchi, Sandra Bernhard, Fred Hechinger, David Mamet, Geza Rohrig
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hr 29 mins
