After setting box office records, Marty Supreme lost the top honor at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards to the Leonardo DiCaprio-led One Battle After Another.
While star Teyana Taylor yelled, “Let’s go,” on stage following the movie’s win, director Paul Thomas Anderson made an impassioned — yet monotone — speech about the accolade.
“Thank you very much, everybody. This is really fantastic. Fantastic news,” he said on Sunday, January 4. “We’ll take it. A lot of great films. It’s great to be in this room. It’s great to be part of all of this. It’s great to have this cast behind me.”
One Battle After Another was up against the Timothée Chalamet-led Marty Supreme along with Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Jay Kelly, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams and Wicked: For Good. The movie starred DiCaprio as the washed-up former revolutionary named Bob, who is living off the grid in a constant state of paranoia with his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti). Part comedy, part thriller, the movie has received positive reviews since its September 2025 release.
The One Battle After Another Win came moments after Chalamet took home his own Critics Choice Award for Best Actor. He starred as the titular character in Marty Supreme. Chalamet appeared alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara and Fran Drescher. Directed by Josh Safdie, the film is loosely based on the life of table tennis player Marty Reisman. The film broke A24’s record after its Christmas Day release, earning the highest-grossing domestic opening in the studio’s history with $28.3 million, per The Numbers. It was also a favorite to sweep this awards season.
Chalamet portrays Marty Mauser, an overconfident shoe salesman who competes in professional table tennis tournaments with dreams of making it his full-time career. But there’s a plethora of problems that plague this ping-pong wizard — Marty’s cockiness and lack of travel funds get him in big trouble on more than one occasion, including several anxiety-inducing run-ins with the law.
That’s not all that goes unexpectedly, as Marty has an affair with a married woman from his apartment building named Rachel Mizler (A’zion) and gets her pregnant. Initially he doesn’t want to face the truth about the child’s paternity.
Just when you think his situation couldn’t get any stickier, he begins an affair with actress Kay Stone (Paltrow), wife of investor Milton Rockwell (O’Leary), while also attempting to come up with a way to fund his trip to the World Championships. He even resorts to stealing a necklace off of her neck to pawn it off, only to find out it was costume jewelry.
The final 15 minutes of the film are perhaps the most nail-biting, as Marty defies the wishes of Milton, revealing a match with Japanese rival Koto Endo was a sham, and demands a second chance at a rematch. In the end, Marty learns a huge lesson about taking responsibility for his own actions after he’s told he cannot compete in the World Championships due to his poor choices.
During his press tour for the film, Chalamet channeled Marty’s confidence, seemingly predicting he could walk away with an Academy Award for his “top-of-the-line” performance.
“This is in the spirit of Marty, and I feel like this is ultimately an original film at a time when original movies aren’t really put out,” he told IndieWire in December. “It’s a movie about the pursuit of a dream. I’m leaving it on the field. Whether it’s the merch or the Zoom or the media appearances, I’m trying to get this out in the biggest way possible. In the spirit of Marty Mauser.”
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