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First reactions to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Digger” are officially in after early New York and Los Angeles press screenings over the last few days. The London premiere is meanwhile underway. Along with the upcoming “Dune: Part Three,” the apocalyptic satire starring Tom Cruise as an ostentatious oil baron in “Dr. Strangelove” mode is one of Warner Bros.’ major fall Oscar players.
Four-time nominee Cruise, 64, has never won a competitive Oscar despite claiming an Honorary Academy Award last year. The “Top Gun: Maverick” star is already on the campaign trail, with a first-look GQ interview that was hardly dishy but included a semi-shirtless photo spread suggesting a potentially vulnerable tell-all. (An empty promise, alas, in a mostly boilerplate sit-down with the global star.)
In the ambitiously scaled film co-written by Iñárritu with Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone (“Birdman”) plus Sabina Berman, Cruise plays the outsize, oblivious-to-the-outside-world oil tycoon Digger Rockwell. He’s told that drilling in Greenland has not only caused a dire expulsion of methane gas but that it’s also dislodged an ice shelf from a glacier, and it’s barreling toward Europe, with the potential to trigger a tsunami and cause cataclysmic disaster.
His chaotic orbit includes Riz Ahmed as scientist Ganesh, Sandra Hüller as Digger’s irascible half-sister and business partner, John Goodman as the dictatorial U.S. president with anal cancer, Michael Stuhlbarg as the feckless vice president, and Jesse Plemons as a mystery figure whose role comes into focus late in the film. There’s also a sure-to-be-divisive twist fairly early in the movie that upends its entire premise.
First reactions are predictably all over the map for “Digger,” ranging from praise for its audaciousness as a studio film to criticism for its “unfunny” satire about the end of the world. Either way, “the divide on this one is going to be wide,” as Variety’s Clayton Davis noted. IndieWire’s Anne Thompson called it “a brave and gorgeous art film.” Critics are especially divided about the over-the-top performances, though both Cruise and Ahmed’s turns already draw strong praise. We’ve rounded up tweets below.
Iñárritu’s trusted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki returns, with Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner (“Bugsy”) supplying an intentionally dreary yet meticulously rendered end-times vibe. Cruise is also layered beneath a great deal of prosthetics work, which the actor claims he notched down from taking six hours to just one in the makeup chair.
IndieWire previously reported a $125 million budget (or higher, per some insiders) on “Digger” — hardly Iñárritu’s highest when stacked up against his Best Director-winning 2015 wintry survival epic “The Revenant.” With marketing and awards campaign spend, the film will need to make upwards of $300 million worldwide to break even, according to an insider we spoke to.
See a sampling of Tuesday’s first reactions to “Digger” below. The film opens wide, including on IMAX and in VistaVision in several locations, on October 2.
Digger: watching Alejandro González Iñárritu try to construct a joke is like watching Frank Gehry try to draw a straight line.
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) September 22, 2026A.G. Iñárritu's Digger is a brave and gorgeous art film that will not score with mainstream audiences but will play best for the Academy, especially crafts and actors. But critics will divide on Cruise. The tour-de-force amphitheater scene might put him across. Riz Ahmed is fab.
— Anne Thompson (@akstanwyck) September 22, 2026DIGGER: The problem with continuing to make statements about your own art and reflect on your own legacy is that you'll eventually ruin both. A self-indulgent miscalculation from end to end.
— Ryan Lattanzio (@ryanlattanzio) September 22, 2026DIGGER: 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"Digger" is not what people are expecting — and how audiences react may be the ultimate test of Tom Cruise's star power. I respect the swing and what Alejandro González Iñárritu is going for. Tom Cruise and John Goodman are delivering stellar work (Sophie Wilde might be best in… pic.twitter.com/egbp5ExWVj
— Clayton Davis (@ByClaytonDavis) September 22, 2026Didn't realize Iñárritu was pretty much making his own DR. STRANGELOVE w/ DIGGER, until—as signposted from the v first frame—it turns into something else that the BIRDMAN director knows how to navigate with panache. Loved Cruise, & the film's audacious existential strangeness.
— Tomris Laffly (@TomiLaffly) September 22, 2026DIGGER 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, 2026I cannot say that Digger is very good, although I could tell what Iñarritu and Cruise were going for. There is a major reveal (not a twist) towards the end that almost justifies the craziness… but it will be a tough movie to review, and I expect a HORRENDOUS CinemaScore.
— Edward Douglas (@EDouglasWW) September 22, 2026Digger is a mess. Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Iñárritu are taking a massive swing here, but despite some great production design and a commitment to their big choices, not a whole lot works here. Cruise is good and Riz Ahmed is a highlight, but man this wasn’t enjoyable.#Digger pic.twitter.com/dCQEtDlSYG
— Joey Magidson (@JoeyMagidson) September 22, 2026Tom Cruise, as you probably expect, is *going for it* in DIGGER, which makes me want to like it. Though I find some plot choices baffling. There are very interesting moments in a meta, Cruise’s career way, but MAVERICK did them better. (It’s also kind of generally unpleasant.)
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) September 22, 2026“Digger” not only showcases Tom Cruise’s best performance since “Magnolia,” it’s one of the most visually inventive, conceptually audacious, and unpredictable studio movies ever made. Takes so many bold aesthetic swings it makes “Bardo” look like an episode of “The Golden Girls.”
— Jim Hemphill (@JimmyHemphill) September 22, 2026DIGGER is a timely examination of powerful, wealthy narcissists manipulating the public narrative for their gain. It is very goofy, though not particularly funny, while also dissecting itself being this way. A satire about the role of satire. Fascinating stuff, (1/2)
— The Oscar Expert (@expert_oscar_2) September 22, 2026DIGGER is not at all what it seems on the surface. What begins as an over-the-top comedy of gigantic satirical proportions suddenly turns into a meta, somber commentary on the bleak state of the world we’re inevitably heading toward, our inability to stop it, and what we’ll… pic.twitter.com/AYTaRaGNYl
— Matt Neglia @NYFF (@NextBestPicture) September 22, 2026
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