Tom Cruise Goes to War With His Own Disaster in Digger, Coming to Australian Cinemas

Tom Cruise is stepping into very different territory with Digger, a darkly comic new film from Oscar-winning filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. The ambitious satire is set to arrive in Australian cinemas on October 1, 2026, bringing Cruise together with Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons and John Goodman for a story about wealth, power and an environmental disaster spiralling completely out of control.

Cruise stars as Digger Rockwell, an eccentric billionaire oil tycoon who has spent his life surrounded by unimaginable wealth and influence. Used to getting exactly what he wants, Digger has built his empire through aggressive oil drilling, seemingly without much concern for the consequences his business leaves behind.

That changes when an environmental catastrophe linked to his activities threatens to destroy everything.

Faced with a crisis that he helped create, Digger launches an increasingly desperate campaign to convince the world that he is not responsible — but its unlikely saviour. His attempt to control the narrative turns into a frantic mission as the scale of the disaster becomes impossible to ignore.

The film marks the latest feature from Alejandro González Iñárritu, the acclaimed director behind Birdman and The Revenant. Rather than delivering a conventional disaster movie, Digger uses its catastrophic premise as the foundation for a dark comedy and social satire, taking aim at extreme wealth, celebrity, environmental responsibility and the desire to control public perception.

Cruise leads an ensemble cast that includes Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sophie Wilde, Emma D'Arcy and Robert John Burke. For Australian audiences, the presence of Wilde adds another familiar face to an international cast that brings together performers from film and television across several countries.

The film runs for approximately 129 minutes and has been classified MA15+ in Australia for strong coarse language. The Australian Classification Board officially classified Digger on September 17, 2026.

Australian cinemas are already preparing for the film's arrival. Event Cinemas, HOYTS and Palace Cinemas all list Digger for October 1, with Palace scheduling the film across participating cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and other locations.

The film will also receive a premium presentation in Australia. IMAX Melbourne confirms that Digger was shot entirely in VistaVision and will be presented in IMAX 4K Laser Digital, giving audiences an opportunity to experience Iñárritu's large-scale visual approach on an especially expansive screen.

What makes Digger particularly intriguing is the contradiction at the centre of its protagonist. Digger is enormously powerful, yet the disaster he faces is something money and influence may not be able to control. His attempt to transform himself from the person responsible for the crisis into its supposed saviour provides the film with its central source of dark humour.

With Iñárritu behind the camera and Cruise leading a heavyweight ensemble, Digger looks set to offer Australian audiences something considerably different from the usual Hollywood blockbuster. It is part environmental satire, part dark comedy and part character-driven drama — all built around a billionaire desperately trying to outrun the consequences of his own actions.

Digger opens in Australian cinemas on October 1, 2026.

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