When the teaser for Digger dropped, I wondered if Tom Cruise might re-engage with Academy politics and campaign for an acting Oscar (he just got an honorary one back in November). The full trailer for Digger debuted online yesterday, and I don’t think Cruise is even going to have to campaign, I think he’s an obvious top contender for Best Actor. The only question is if Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film lives up to the early hype and is actually as funny as it looks.

Because Digger looks FUNNY. It looks like if Wes Anderson decided to make a movie in which every man was hideous. Everyone looks terrible, the lighting is bad on purpose, the angles are maximally unflattering. Iñárritu seems to be asserting a visual language in which the men running the world into the ground look as ugly as they think and act. The only thing missing is that one of these guys should look vaguely wet all the time. Among the real class of men running the world into the ground, there’s always one who is weirdly damp.

Digger definitely seems like a comedy, and you can see Cruise tapping into the same energy he brought to Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, but here it’s channeled into an oil billionaire who has triggered the end of the world. John Goodman stars as the President of the United States, and the film co-stars Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and, naturally, Jesse Plemons. He has become a prerequisite for bonkers, auteur-driven cinema.

I really love the look of Digger, and I love that Tom Cruise is out here stunting for this film like it’s Top Gun. Over the weekend he joined TikTok and appeared on the Warner Bros. lot for a trailer premiere which involved scaling a giant shovel. Never change, you f-cking weirdo.

@tomcruise DIGGER. Trailer out now! #DiggerMovie ♬ original sound - Tom Cruise

TIME magazine is also getting in on the fun, offering a “Titan of the Year” cover for Cruise’s character, Digger Rockwell.

What’s interesting about this is Tom Cruise applying the marketing style he’s perfected over two decades of making action movies to an auteurist film slated in the middle of awards season. Somehow the vibe this movie is giving off is less “Oscar bait” and more “Florida, but make it a movie”. I must be honest, I am, er, digging it (sorry, couldn’t resist).

But however irreverent Digger looks, however grotesque everyone looks in the trailer, it IS being released in the heart of awards season. And it is a film from Iñárritu, and undoubtedly at some point the marketing is going to start leaning on “Tom Cruise acting for real again” as an angle. This is a film the Academy will take seriously, unless and until it proves to be bad. But if it’s good? Especially given this recent Academy that has embraced films like Barbie and The Substance? Digger could be a major contender, beyond even Tom Cruise’s return to “real” acting.

So, yes, we will probably be dealing with a Tom Cruise Oscar campaign later this year. I just have no idea what that will look like, practically. This is a man who has perfected the art of movie marketing while simultaneously skipping the trophy trail every year for two decades. Whatever his campaign looks like, it won’t be like anyone else’s. 2026 might be a Best Actor race defined by Ryan Gosling, Matt Damon, and…Tom Cruise. Oh, I cannot WAIT for those round tables. And Tom Cruise on Hot Ones when?

 

Digger trailer stills

Photo credits: YouTube/Warner Bros.

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