Timothée Chalamet earns career-best praise for Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme after surprise NYFF premiere

Josh Safdie’s much-anticipated solo feature Marty Supreme made its surprise world premiere at the New York Film Festival, drawing widespread acclaim from critics who hailed it as both an electrifying sports epic and a career-defining moment for Timothée Chalamet.

The A24 production, centered on a ping-pong prodigy named Marty Mauser, stars Chalamet in what Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh described as “his best performance yet,” calling the film “‘Uncut Gems’ meets ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ meets ‘Jerry Maguire.’” Discussing Film’s Diego Andaluz deemed it Safdie’s “best film yet,” while also labeling Chalamet’s portrayal “the performance of a lifetime.”

Senior Hollywood Reporter writer David Canfield called Marty Supreme “major, exhilarating filmmaking,” adding that Chalamet “was born to play this guy.” Entertainment journalist David Crow described the film as “an absolute blast of adrenaline” and “the follow-up to ‘Uncut Gems’ we’ve been craving.”

The film follows Marty Mauser, a young ping-pong phenom chasing greatness overseas despite personal and professional turmoil. A24’s brief synopsis notes, “Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.”

The ensemble cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler the Creator, Abel Ferrara, and Fran Drescher. Paltrow previously told Vanity Fair that her role involves “a lot of sex” with Chalamet’s character, noting that she and the actor felt comfortable enough to ask the intimacy coordinator to “step back a little” during filming.

Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture praised the film as “a sprawling and electrifying sports epic bursting with vitality,” while Anne Thompson of IndieWire called Chalamet’s performance “his Wolf of Wall Street” and predicted an Oscar nomination.

Marty Supreme opens in theaters on December 25 via A24.