发布时间: 12/30/2025
Timothée Chalamet’s best shot at an Oscar this year is tied directly to his blazing turn in Marty Supreme. Directed by Josh Safdie, the film is a frantic, jittery live wire, built around Marty Mauser’s wild, last-ditch attempts to claw his way into table tennis stardom. The movie rarely slows down, and neither does he.
Critics have responded strongly, early box office for A24 is more than respectable, and the film has firmly pushed Chalamet into the conversation as one of the major Best Actor contenders at the 98th Academy Awards. At the same time, the race is stacked, and as buzzy as his campaign looks right now, his path to actually winning the Oscar is far from guaranteed.
Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar-Worthy Turn In Marty Supreme
Industry watchers widely expect Timothée Chalamet to land his third Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards for Marty Supreme, following earlier nods in 2018 for Call Me by Your Name and in 2025 for A Complete Unknown. Those performances already marked him as one of his generation’s key talents, but his work here pushes into a different gear entirely. You can feel it scene by scene: this is a role designed to live or die with its lead actor.
Marty Mauser is written as a man whose charm barely papers over a bottomless well of anxiety, selfish impulses, and a sliver of raw, recognizable longing. He can be careless and reckless, yet there is just enough burning drive and bruised humanity under the surface to keep audiences locked into his journey. It’s the sort of part that simply doesn’t feel like it would land the same way with anyone but Chalamet in the center, which is a distinct advantage in a crowded Oscar race.
The character channels Chalamet’s natural magnetism and offbeat comic timing into a definitive portrait of a hustler hovering right on the edge of a breakthrough—and an emotional collapse. The performance plays in three registers at once: compelling, nasty, and sharply funny. That mix makes the character easy to watch but hard to forget, helping him cut through a field of more conventional dramatic turns that usually dominate awards season.
Given his track record and previous nominations, it’s obvious that the Academy already takes Chalamet seriously. Combine that with the strong box office and critical word-of-mouth for A24’s Marty Supreme, and it would be genuinely surprising if he were left out of the final Best Actor lineup. Even so, a nomination is only the first hurdle. Turning that recognition into a win means he has to withstand a wave of powerful competing narratives.
How Strong Are Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar Chances?
As of now, most awards-season analysts rank Timothée Chalamet as one of the clear frontrunners for Best Actor at the 98th Academy Awards. His history with the Oscars works in his favor: multiple nominations tend to signal that the Academy is looking for the right moment to reward someone. Still, his past bids came in brutally competitive years, and in both cases, the eventual winners managed to eclipse his work in the eyes of voters.
In 2018, Gary Oldman’s performance in Darkest Hour played like a culmination of a long career, a classic “it’s time” win that was hard for any younger nominee to overcome. Later, when Chalamet was nominated for A Complete Unknown, his work slotted more neatly into the kind of traditional biopic performance that often shows up in the lineup but doesn’t always take the prize. That season, the momentum shifted toward Adrian Brody’s blistering, emotionally expansive acting in The Brutalist, which resonated powerfully with the Academy.
This year, the dynamics look different. Chalamet’s odds are much stronger at the 98th Academy Awards because of how singular his Marty Supreme performance feels. It’s not just another biopic or prestige slow-burn; it’s a high-wire character study that underlines he’s no passing fad. Add the film’s strong reviews and healthy commercial run, and he suddenly looks like a contender whose campaign rests on both quality and real-world impact. Even so, awards season is always about narrative, and a few rival stories are threatening to overtake his.
One of those belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio, who still has only one Best Actor Oscar on his shelf. If the Academy leans toward recognizing his broader career once again for his work in One Battle After Another, his name alone could create a late surge. Similarly, Michael B. Jordan stands to gain if Sinners keeps dominating the awards conversation. Should voters conclude that he’s delivered multiple award-caliber turns in close succession, that could be the tipping point that nudges him into the winner’s circle.
On top of that, strong seasons from Magner Moura, Ethan Hawke, Joel Edgerton, Dwayne Johnson, Jesse Plemons, and Jeremy Allen White mean the nomination phase itself remains volatile. Any one of them could spike in visibility if precursor awards break their way. Still, early chatter and precursor buzz suggest that the main three names gathering serious momentum are Chalamet, DiCaprio, and Jordan. Each delivers standout work in very different projects, and each could make a legitimate case for taking home the statue.
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Why Marty Supreme Could Be Chalamet’s Best Path To A Win
As the race tightens, there’s another angle that could quietly help Chalamet: Marty Supreme may be the Academy’s primary opportunity to honor the film at all. DiCaprio and Jordan are likely to be boosted if One Battle After Another and Sinners rack up nominations across directing, writing, and technical categories. By contrast, even though Marty Supreme is widely regarded as a strong, propulsive film that’s overperforming at the box office for A24, it’s not projected to dominate the field in the same way overall.
That dynamic might actually play into Chalamet’s hands. In an era when the idea of the classic movie star has started to feel a bit endangered, he is one of the few performers who convincingly fits that description while still taking risks on offbeat material. If the Academy wants to acknowledge both the film and what he represents for the future of Hollywood, Best Actor becomes the most direct way to do it—especially if voters are tempted to anoint him with a first Oscar as a kind of passing of the torch from figures like Leonardo DiCaprio.
There is still plenty of awards-season runway left, though, and nothing is locked. A sweep by DiCaprio, Jordan, or another competitor at major precursors—like the guild awards or the BAFTAs—could easily flip the perceived hierarchy of the race. Sometimes, a surprise win at a key ceremony can throw a so-called “sure thing” into chaos and create space for a dark-horse triumph that pundits didn’t see coming.
Even with all that volatility, Chalamet currently stands in the strongest overall position to capture a Best Actor Oscar, especially if Marty Supreme continues to hold at the box office and remains central to the cultural conversation. As long as audiences keep turning out and talking about Marty Mauser, his campaign has a living, breathing engine behind it.
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Marty Supreme
R
Sports
9.0/10
Release Date December 25, 2025
Runtime 150 Minutes
Director Josh Safdie
Writers Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
Cast
Genres Drama, Comedy, Sports
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