10 Movies Like Marty Supreme

If you walked out of Marty Supreme buzzing with that frenetic, sweat-on-the-brow intensity that Josh Safdie does better than almost anyone, you’re going to want more. The film takes a simple premise, a table tennis player clawing his way to the top in 1950s New York, and turns it into something that feels like your heart rate never drops below 120. Finding movies like Marty Supreme means chasing a specific cocktail: obsessive characters, propulsive filmmaking, period texture, and that sense that everything could unravel at any second.

What makes Marty Supreme so electric isn’t just the sport. It’s the fixation. Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser like a man possessed, someone who’d burn every relationship in his life for one more point. That type of character, the one who can’t stop even when stopping would save them, shows up across some of the best dramas ever made. Here are ten films that scratch that same itch.

1. Uncut Gems (2019)

The obvious pick, and for good reason. Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie’s previous film is the blueprint for Marty Supreme’s manic energy. Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner is a jeweler who cannot stop gambling, cannot stop scheming, cannot stop talking. The Safdie brothers shoot New York like it’s closing in on you. If you loved the suffocating intensity of Marty Supreme, this is ground zero.

2. Whiplash (2014)

The closest spiritual sibling to Marty Supreme. Andrew Neiman wants to be the greatest jazz drummer alive, and he’ll bleed for it, literally. Damien Chazelle frames drumming with the same intensity that Safdie brings to ping pong, making every practice session feel like a cage match. J.K. Simmons as Fletcher is one of the great screen antagonists. If you responded to the “pursuit of greatness at any cost” theme in Marty Supreme, Whiplash is essential.

3. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Plainview is obsession incarnate. Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil epic follows a man who turns ambition into a religion and destroys everything around him in the process. Daniel Day-Lewis gives what might be the most ferocious performance of the 2000s. The film is slower and more deliberate than Marty Supreme, but the central question is the same: what does it cost to be the best? The bowling alley scene alone is worth the price of admission.

David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin turned the founding of Facebook into a story about a brilliant, insufferable young man who can’t stop building, can’t stop fighting, and can’t figure out why everyone keeps leaving him. Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg has that same wired intensity as Chalamet’s Marty Mauser. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score pulses underneath everything like a second heartbeat. The deposition scenes are razor-sharp.

5. Raging Bull (1980)

Scorsese’s boxing masterpiece is the godfather of every film about a talented person who can’t get out of their own way. Robert De Niro’s Jake LaMotta is a champion in the ring and a disaster everywhere else. The black-and-white photography is gorgeous, but it’s De Niro’s physical transformation that still shocks. This is the gold standard for movies about athletes whose obsession becomes self-destruction.

6. Nightcrawler (2014)

Jake Gyllenhaal lost weight and gained something unsettling for his role as Lou Bloom, a freelance crime journalist who will do anything for the perfect shot. Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut is a portrait of American hustle culture taken to its sociopathic extreme. Lou’s dead eyes and relentless ambition make him one of the most watchable, disturbing protagonists of the last decade. The LA night shoots are beautiful and eerie.

7. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Scorsese at his most unhinged. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort is addicted to everything: money, drugs, power, the sound of his own voice. The Quaalude sequence is one of the funniest, most uncomfortable things Scorsese has ever filmed. At three hours, it’s an endurance test by design, mirroring the excess it depicts. If Marty Supreme is about a man who can’t stop chasing greatness, Wolf is about a man who can’t stop chasing everything else.

8. A Complete Unknown (2024)

Chalamet again, this time as Bob Dylan in early ’60s New York. James Mangold’s film is quieter than Marty Supreme, but it shares that fascination with a young talent arriving in a city that doesn’t know what to do with him. The Greenwich Village folk scene is rendered with real care, and Chalamet does his own singing. It’s a great companion piece that shows a different side of creative obsession in the same era.

9. Beautiful Boy (2018)

This one flips the formula. Instead of chasing greatness, Timothée Chalamet’s Nic Sheff is chasing a high, and he can’t stop no matter how much it destroys him or the people who love him. Steve Carell plays his father with a quiet desperation that’s hard to shake. The film understands addiction as its own form of obsession, the same inability to quit that drives Marty Mauser, just aimed at something that’s killing you. It’s rawer and more heartbreaking than most of the films on this list, and Chalamet shows a vulnerability here that hints at the range he’d later bring to Marty Supreme.

10. Is God Is (2026)

A very different kind of obsession. Aleshea Harris’s film follows two sisters on an epic, unrelenting quest for revenge, and once they start, there’s no off-switch. The momentum is relentless. Where Marty Supreme channels its single-mindedness through sport and ambition, Is God Is channels it through rage and family history. The tone is wilder and more operatic, but the engine underneath is the same: characters locked into a course of action who simply will not stop. It hit theaters last month to some of the best reviews of the year, and it deserves the attention.

Every one of these films understands something that Marty Supreme gets so right: there’s nothing more watchable than a person who’s in too deep and keeps going anyway. Whether it’s ping pong, drumming, oil, stolen jewels, or something darker, the engine is the same. The character can’t quit, and neither can you.

Browse more dramas in our collection, or check out our review of Whiplash for a deeper look at the price of perfection.