Tom Cruise’s first major non-action leading role in nearly a decade is prompting sharply divided early reactions, as critics who saw “Digger” at press screenings this week struggled to agree on whether Alejandro González Iñárritu’s apocalyptic satire works.
The film casts Cruise as Digger Rockwell, an ostentatious oil tycoon confronting the fallout of a disaster he set in motion, in a role critics have compared to Peter Sellers’ turn in “Dr. Strangelove.” Reactions posted after New York and Los Angeles screenings ranged from enthusiastic to dismissive. Next Best Picture founder Matt Neglia called it Cruise’s most dynamic performance in years, while also noting the film gives him room to grandstand without digging into the nuance a tighter script might have allowed.
Variety awards columnist Clayton Davis said he respected the ambition on display and singled out Cruise and John Goodman for strong performances, even as he acknowledged that the story’s disparate threads don’t fully resolve. IndieWire’s Anne Thompson went further, describing the film as a brave and visually striking work of art-house filmmaking.
DIGGER: Alejandro González Iñárritu continues to take big swings and make bold choices as a writer and filmmaker. While this film certainly won’t work for everyone, I found the pairing of Iñárritu and Tom Cruise to be an engaging and one of a kind experience. Cruise really does… pic.twitter.com/1oOxHBGAJh
— Scott Menzel (@ScottDMenzel) September 22, 2026
Others pushed back harder. Journalist Mike Ryan called the film baffling and generally unpleasant, arguing that “Top Gun: Maverick” pulled off similar meta commentary on Cruise’s stardom with more success. Awards Radar’s Joey Magidson labeled it a mess, saying little of it landed despite the visible ambition, and critic Edward Douglas predicted a rough response from mainstream audiences even as he credited the filmmakers with a clear creative vision.
DIGGER is a very mixed bag. You’ll get what it’s saying, and the concept is interesting, but it doesn’t trust the audience enough not to hold its hand. Riz Ahmed is great. The Cruise performance is solid. Hard to do satire when the absurdity is so prominent in reality. pic.twitter.com/SzhcTaztWB
— Kristen Lopez (@kristenklopez) September 22, 2026
“Digger” reunites Cruise with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and pairs him with Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner, whose bleak, meticulously constructed vision of societal collapse drew consistent praise even from the film’s detractors. Cruise reportedly wears extensive prosthetics for the role, and has said the makeup process was streamlined from six hours down to one. The film marks Iñárritu’s first English-language project since “The Revenant” and was shot over six months in the United Kingdom, with a script he co-wrote in 2023 alongside his longtime “Birdman” collaborators.
Warner Bros. is positioning “Digger” as one of its major fall awards contenders, alongside “Dune: Part Three.” Cruise, a four-time Oscar nominee who received an honorary Academy Award last year, has never won a competitive Oscar. “Digger” opens in theaters Oct. 2.
