Tom Cruise’s Digger Has Audiences Split Down the Middle on Opening Day

Two brothers sat through the same opening-night screening of Digger. One walked out raving. The other walked out hating every minute. Fans on r/boxoffice say that split is basically the whole story of Tom Cruise’s new movie.

The numbers back it up. Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and released October 2, opens with a 65% Verified Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (3.4/5, over 100 ratings). The all-audience score is higher at 72% (3.7/5, over 250 ratings). Critics are cooler: 54% from 177 reviews, and just 35% among 51 Top Critics. Metacritic sits at 46. The film follows the most powerful man in the world, played by Cruise as Digger Rockwell, on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything.

Seven Ways Fans Are Arguing Over Digger

1. It’s love-or-hate, and that might be a good thing. Reactions are said to run across the whole spectrum, even among people who follow the same critics. Some fans would rather have a movie that provokes than one that’s forgettable.
2. The defenders say it’s art, not a crowd-pleaser. One viewer called it a film that doesn’t follow a traditional story arc or the usual hero-and-villain roles. Another said it plays like a stage piece and that calling it self-indulgent misses the point. Both said it kept working on them after the credits.
3. The skeptics say it never made them care. One moviegoer wanted to leave halfway. They felt the film gave them every reason not to invest. Others were more mixed: they praised the courtroom scene and the Cruise and Riz Ahmed chemistry but still landed around two and a half stars.
4. The score is lower than the faithful should have produced. Early verified scores usually come from the people most eager to see a film. Some fans were surprised that this crowd gave only 65%. Others, reading the numbers as a CinemaScore-style grade, guessed a B- or a C range.
5. Some fans smell something off in the glowing reviews. A few noticed near-identical, highly enthusiastic comments across Reddit and Rotten Tomatoes. Some of them cast critics as out-of-touch elites. These fans wondered how organic it all is, while others pointed out that the all-audience score is easy to push in either direction. It’s suspicion, not proof.
6. It could be the next Eddington. One fan predicted its relevance will put people off, as it did with that film. Another said the problem is the form and presentation, not the subject, and pointed to Don’t Look Up and One Battle After Another as films that avoided the issue. Some think a cult following is coming.
7. The Oscar question is already here. Some fans think a passionate niche could help Cruise land a nomination. Others say this year’s best actor field is stacked, and some wondered whether the film reads as too obvious an awards play.

Even the early French audience reaction turned into a side debate. Some fans said French moviegoers simply love art-house cinema. Others noted the same audiences can also give a standing ovation to Top Gun: Maverick. For now, Digger has opened the kind of conversation that doesn’t end at the exit. Maybe that’s what Iñárritu wanted. The only question is who gets to say they were right.

Sources

• Digger (2026) | Rotten Tomatoes
• Discussion on r/boxoffice

Featured image — Photo: Kevin Paul / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)