A Star, a Ping-Pong Paddle, and an Electric Night
NEW YORK — On Monday night, the New York Film Festival held its annual secret screening. The air in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall was thick with guesses. Was it a documentary? A quiet drama?
Then, director Josh Safdie walked on stage. The secret was out. The movie was Marty Supreme, his nearly three-hour epic about a table tennis prodigy, starring Timothée Chalamet. And the director had just finished editing it hours before. “I finished it at 2 a.m. yesterday,” Safdie told the buzzing crowd. “You’re the first audience to see this film” .
What followed was not just a movie screening. It was the birth of an instant awards contender and a powerful reminder of the magic of cinema.
The Big Reveal
The event had the fierce energy of a major sports finals . Tickets for the surprise showing sold out in just 20 minutes . The hall was filled with a mix of film critics, industry insiders, and famous faces like actor Christopher Abbott and SNL’s Sarah Sherman .
When Chalamet joined Safdie on stage, he was home. “This movie, in many ways, beyond being about Marty Mauser is a love letter to New York,” he said. Referring to his alma mater, LaGuardia High School, just down the street.
A Film That Plays by Its Own Rules
Marty Supreme is a sports comedy-drama set in the 1950s that tells the story of Marty Mauser, a young and arrogant table tennis player with a dream of becoming a champion . The film features a standout cast, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler, the Creator, and Odessa A’zion, all of whom attended the premiere .
While full reviews are under embargo, the immediate reactions from critics and attendees on social media were overflowing with praise. The film was described as a “manic, madcap odyssey” and a “wild rush of nonstop adrenaline” that is both “exhilarating and exhausting” .
At the center of it all is Chalamet’s performance. Critics are calling it his best work yet. “To call this a sports movie isn’t enough,” wrote Hoai-Tran Bui of Inverse . Anne Thompson of IndieWire went further, predicting an Oscar nomination and comparing his performance to Leonardo DiCaprio’s in The Wolf of Wall Street .
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More Than a Movie, a New York Moment
The film’s premiere was a true New York event, continuing long after the credits rolled. Select guests found matchbooks in their press packets pointing them to an afterparty at The Waverly Inn in Greenwich Village .
There, the celebration felt like a who’s who of New York culture, but in a relaxed, unguarded way. Director Josh Safdie, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Christian Slater mingled in the garden. Tyler, the Creator shared an intense conversation with Jerrod Carmichael. And Chalamet himself held court with his friends, all while skilled servers navigated the crowd with trays of wine and caviar-topped potatoes .
It was a night that blurred the lines between the film’s love letter to the city and the city’s embrace of the film.
The Road to the Oscars
The buzz from the screening does more than just promote a movie; it launches Marty Supreme straight into the heart of the upcoming awards season. For Chalamet, the praise solidifies his status as one of his generation’s most committed and daring actors. For A24, the studio behind the film, this is a major victory. Marty Supreme is reportedly their most expensive film ever, with a budget of around $70 million . Its success is crucial for the indie studio.
As the party at The Waverly Inn continued into the night, the feeling was clear: something special had happened. A film about the relentless pursuit of greatness, set in the city that never sleeps, had taken its first, triumphant step. Everyone in the room knew they had witnessed the start of a phenomenon.
When Marty Supreme hits theaters on December 25, the world will get to see if the electric buzz from New York was just a moment, or the beginning of a classic . Based on the reactions from Monday night, Hollywood should be ready for a whirlwind.
Author: Junaid Arif
Date: 8 Oct, 2025
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