At the 2026 Oscars, Michael B. Jordan should have been wearing a black and white striped outfit with a mask on, as he stole the Best Actor award from Timothée Chalamet.

Perhaps the young Hollywood star brought some of it on himself, in what turned out to be fairly aggressive marketing on his behalf, when promoting the film, which he labelled “method marketing”.

A lesson learnt, perhaps, considering the outcome, with his tactics backfiring spectacularly, not only with his own category, but with the film Marty Supreme picking up not one of its nine nominations.

At least Chalamet’s breathtaking performance will live on, playing a gifted young ping pong player.

1952, New York City, and young Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is working in a shoe store for his uncle. As good as he is at selling shoes – so much so that his uncle wants to make him the manager - Marty has other plans; he has a talent for playing ping pong, which has him participating in the 10th British Open in London.

Despite playing well, the tournament doesn’t exactly go to plan, with the result sending Marty’s life spiralling into chaos.

Chalamet has been consistently enthralling, ever since his role in 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, and he is no different here.

He plays the over-confident Marty, whose obvious cockiness gets him into a few situations, good and bad. And considering he’s almost in every frame for the film’s two and half hour duration, that’s a lot of Chalamet, which in Josh Safdie’s hands, is a very good thing.

It’s the first time since his directorial debut, 2008’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed, that the US director has worked without his brother Benny, who since then have directed five films together, with the last collaboration being 2019’s Uncut Gems. Despite working with his brother for all these years, Josh has proven, unequivocally, that he has what it takes to direct alone.

He also co-wrote the script, with his regular writing partner Ronald Bronstein, and the result is a forehand smash. Although the world of pong is the backdrop, it’s Marty’s hectic life in the foreground that is the crowd pleaser; it’s the kind of satisfyingly unpredictable journey that would be pointless to second guess, as it carves a very unique and gripping path.

And considering its considerable length, Safdie fills it with some fantastic storytelling, with a tasty soundtrack, making it ping pong along at a steady pace throughout.

It also showcases the supreme talent of young Chalamet, who just dives in and gives his all, regardless of the genre.

His youthful exuberance and passion to promote the film, which he was heavily emotionally invested in, may have scuppered the film’s Oscar campaign, but that doesn’t take away the fact that Marty Supreme was genuinely not only one of the best films of 2025, but also one of the stand out films in recent years.