After 'Marty Supreme' and 'The Smashing Machine,' the Safdie Brothers Still Need Each Other

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Edward Teller wearing glasses and sunscreen in Oppenheimer

Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.

Nine times out of 10, when it comes to sibling directing pairs, they are never meant to be separated. Just look at how it went for Joel and Ethan Coen in the last five years—the division between two blood-related visionaries always amounts to a compartmentalization of skills and interests. In 2025, audiences witnessed the severance of the Safdie Brothers, with Benny Safdie directing the sports drama The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne Johnson, and Josh Safdie directing Timothée Chalamet in a performance of a lifetime as an ambitious ping-pong player in Marty Supreme.

In this showdown, Josh was soundly declared the winner, especially since few people bothered to see what Benny had cooking. The critical acclaim and solid box office performance by Marty Supreme suggest that Josh was the brains of the operation behind Good Time and Uncut Gems, but the film was lacking Benny's sensitive touch, while Josh's vigor and epic scope would've elevated The Smashing Machine.

Benny Safdie Showed the Sensitivity of Professional Fighters in 'The Smashing Machine'

The divorce between the two Safdies as co-directors was amicable, by all accounts, with Benny assuring Rolling Stone that there is "no friction," citing that the two had always made movies separately. Still, with their second collaboration with Adam Sandler seemingly in limbo (announced before their split) and the fervor surrounding Benny not acknowledging his brother in his speech for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival in 2025, plenty of ambiguity is in the air.

Based on their premises, The Smashing Machine and Marty Supreme could've easily been the brothers' follow-up to Uncut Gems, as both films revolve around inscrutable, self-destructive charmers in a sports milieu. They're depicted with an unsettling visual and emotional language that relies more on mood and less on plot. However, The Smashing Machine ended up being an unexpected far cry from the signature Safdie vision and traditional sports biopic. Starring a transformed Dwayne Johnson as real-life MMA fighter Mark Kerr and Emily Blunt as his partner Dawn Staples, it is an incredibly gentle and quiet film about a man whose profession involves beating people to a pulp. Based on a 2002 documentary of the same name, Safdie treats his narrative adaptation like a documentary, capturing the raw intimacy of a troubled couple in their home and in the locker room.

Met with tepid reviews during the festival circuit and flopping hard at the box office, The Smashing Machine was quickly dismissed, even with the approval of Johnson's revelatory dramatic turn. Frequently derided for its meandering pace, muted energy, and formulaic character beats, particularly with Blunt's performance, the film was a rip-off for anyone expecting the anxiety roller-coaster that was Uncut Gems. Time will be kind to The Smashing Machine, as audiences just weren't expecting a movie set in the world of MMA to be so sensitive and hushed. Benny Safdie brings genuine warmth to this grimy, unstable world, but the film fails to enter a second gear due to its lack of propulsion, and its passive direction leads to the narrative falling into sports biopic tropes.

Josh Safdie's Mastery of Tone and Propulsive Momentum in 'Marty Supreme'

On the flip side, Marty Supreme is the true offspring of Good Time and Uncut Gems, signaling that the Safdie Brothers' vision was wholly envisioned by Josh. Marty Mauser (Chalamet) belongs to the lineage of other Safdie protagonists, notably Howard Ratner (Sandler) of Uncut Gems, who is simultaneously grating and infectious to everyone around him. Marty is a hustler who never takes "no" for an answer, which amounts to triumphant underdog successes and cataclysmic demises. No actor was more suited to playing the titular character than Timothée Chalamet, whose own self-conscious "grind" mindset and viral marketing provided stellar meta commentary on Hollywood's most inspiring young actor. Taking place in post-war New York City in the '50s, being scored by '80s pop music, and capturing the relentless angst and naive ambition of contemporary young people with social media brain, Marty Supreme is a rich text reflecting three generations of America while thriving as an invigorating crime/sports thriller.

Even if all the trademarks are there, from the frantic New York energy to the plethora of non-professional actors filling out the scene, Marty Supreme is devoid of that nuanced touch that gets overlooked in the Safdies' canon. Good Time and Uncut Gems take breathers in between intense sequences to understand the psychology of Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) and Howard Ratner. Reserved, tender scenes involving their sense of alienation from family and ineffable desires made these films more than just emotional exercises. Marty Supreme ends on an overtly sentimental note, but the characters' pathos felt artificial compared to Josh Safdie's previous co-directing efforts. Josh may have had more fun with his world, but we understood the complexities of Benny's characters more thoroughly.

Josh's solo feature is ultimately more accomplished and satisfying than Benny's effort, but The Smashing Machine, a total subversion of "great man" inspirational sports biopics, was a more revelatory work, with Marty Supreme being a retread of the brothers' previous glory. As much as they can hold their own, Josh and Benny still need each other.

Marty Supreme is now playing in theaters.