Despite being a box-office hit (it’s A24’s biggest movie ever, earning over $95 million domestic and $275 million worldwide) and nine-time Academy Award nominee, somehow Marty Supreme still feels slept on—relegated to the sidelines by 2025’s two buzz-swallowing heavyweights Sinners and One Battle After Another (which took home a combined 10 Oscars versus Marty’s zero).
But of all the Best Picture nominees, Marty Supreme is the one I find myself recommending to people the most. And time also may reveal it to be the most rewatchable movie of the bunch.
One of the things that makes Marty so fun to watch (and rewatch) is the way it alludes to past movies. Rather than direct homage, other movies feel like they are simply floating around the edges of Marty Supreme.
With the Safdie style and its story of a flawed-but-motivated man living on the knife’s edge, it summons memories of Uncut Gems. Of course, its table tennis scenes take us back to Forest Gump. And I’ve heard writer-director Josh Safdie mention both A Place in the Sun and The Apprentice of Duddy Kravitz as thematic connections.
Here are three other movies that drifted through my mind as I was watching Marty Supreme…
1. Look Who’s Talking (1989)
As soon as we hit the credit sequence in Marty Supreme, I knew I was going to love this movie. Funny, surprising, and essential to the story, there’s only one other major movie credit sequence in existence like it: the 1989 comedy Look Who’s Talking. Based on the concept “what if we could hear the thoughts of babies?”, Look Who’s Talking is an incredibly stupid movie elevated into a smash hit by director Amy Heckerling (who never lets up the pace) and the charm of stars Kirstie Alley and John Travolta (not to mention the voice work of Bruce Willis). On this episode of The Big Picture, Sean Fennessey asked Safdie if the credit sequence was inspired by Look Who’s Talking. Safdie didn’t directly say yes (mentioning that the old books that inspired him might have inspired that movie as well) but I really like the idea that this goofy 80s comedy is a Marty Supreme reference point.
2. The Hustler (1961)
Marty’s unwavering confidence/cockiness and his willingness to do anything to prove he’s the best evoke Paul Newman’s iconic role as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. Watching Marty challenge dopey young players at a bowling alley ping-pong table in the 1950s is reminiscent of Felson making his way across poolrooms in the early 60s, trying to hustle his way to the top. And like Felson, Marty’s drive and personality is both his gift and his fatal flaw. Of course, thinking of The Hustler also conjures its 1986 sequel The Color of Money (directed by none other than Martin Scorsese). That movie features another character—Vincent, played by Tom Cruise—who shares some DNA with both Marty and the actor who portrays him. The way Marty struts through much of the movie, Chalamet is giving off definite Cruise vibes.
3. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Like Marty Supreme, 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis (directed by Joel and Ethan Coen) is also about a talented young man hustling his way through New York City in the mid-twentieth century. In Llewyn Davis, it’s Greenwich Village in 1961 (the same year as The Hustler) where the title character is a folk singer trying to make a buck and a name for himself as a solo act. The movie is strange, melancholy, and heartbreaking—and very much a Coen brothers film (it also might be their best). In his odyssey through New York City, Marty has what could be called some Coen-esque moments (the gas station-dog sequence feels particularly Coen-inspired). It’s also no coincidence both these movies share titles with their on-the-cusp-of-greatness main characters. You can imagine these two sharing drinks and a few laughs… before ending the night trying to choke each other.