Tom Cruise's Dark Comedy 'Digger' Could Finally Earn Him an Oscar

1 week ago 9

Tom Cruise on a motorcycle in Top Gun Maverick

Published Apr 28, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest movie stars in the world for almost half a century — he’s just as comfortable in a Paul Thomas Anderson ensemble as he is anchoring an action blockbuster franchise — and yet, he’s never won an Oscar. Cruise was given an Academy Honorary Award (read: a consolation prize) at this year’s ceremony, but he’s never won a competitive Oscar.

Now that Ethan Hunt has had his “final reckoning,” Cruise is finally going back to his roots as a character actor. For the past 14 years, Cruise has exclusively made big-budget action movies with death-defying stunts, and those are a lot of fun, but his career was a lot more interesting when he shook it up with roles like Les Grossman or Frank T.J. Mackey or himself playing Austin Powers. The last “character” role Cruise played was Stacee Jaxx in the 2012 film version of Rock of Ages.

This year, Cruise is leaving behind the fighter jets and the impossible missions to make a twisted dark comedy with Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Very little is known about this mysterious movie, Digger, but I know enough to make my first Oscar prediction: 2027 will be the year Tom Cruise wins Best Actor.

Why Tom Cruise Could Finally Win An Oscar For Digger

Described on its poster as “A Comedy of Catastrophic Proportions,” Digger sees Cruise in his most eccentric role in years as Digger Rockwell, the most powerful man in the world, who scrambles to position himself as humanity’s savior before he dooms them. Before the movie even comes out on October 2, it already feels prescient, after a certain president posted an A.I. image depicting himself as Jesus.

Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, and Riz Ahmed round out a stacked supporting cast, but this is a star vehicle for Cruise, first and foremost, and I think it’ll finally win him an Oscar. There’s a lot of buzz around the footage of Digger shown at CinemaCon, and Iñárritu previously directed Leonardo DiCaprio to his first Oscar in The Revenant (and damn-near got Michael Keaton one for Birdman). Plus, the narrative of Cruise’s return to dramatic acting after years of blockbusters could generate a Brendan Fraser-style comeback campaign. All the stars are aligned for a Tom Cruise Best Actor win.

Cruise Has Always Been A Character Actor In A Leading Man's Body

Tom Cruise as Frank T. J. Mackey consoling the dying Earl Partridge played by Jason Robards in 1999's Magnolia

Much like his Interview with the Vampire co-star Brad Pitt, Cruise is a character actor in a leading man’s body. He has the look and the charm and the star power to anchor his own movies and play the everyman protagonist opposite the wacky supporting characters, but he really shines when he’s playing one of those wacky supporting characters. You can see that when Cruise played Les in Tropic Thunder, or when Pitt played Floyd in True Romance.

A role like Digger Rockwell makes much better use of Cruise’s talents than a role like Maverick. He’s obviously very charismatic in those Top Gun movies, but there’s no real challenge because he’s just Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise. When he makes a movie like Digger or Magnolia or Born on the Fourth of July, he has to embody the character so fully that Tom Cruise disappears. If he can do that in Digger, then I’m confident he’s going home with an Oscar.