Awards season tends to reward performances that can be cleanly separated from the films carrying them, but Digger may not make that distinction particularly easy. Tom Cruise has traded the familiar machinery of his blockbuster persona for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s strange, abrasive satire, putting an unusually unconventional performance at the center of an equally unconventional film.

The problem for Cruise is not that the performance has disappeared, but that the film around it may make voters work harder to embrace it.

Tom Cruise’s performance is receiving significant attention, but the film itself has emerged as the potential weak point in his Best Actor campaign. Variety’s Clayton Davis described Cruise and John Goodman’s work as “stellar,” while arguing that the film does not make all of its ideas connect.

The difficulty is rooted in Digger’s construction. Iñárritu has made a satirical, apocalyptic film that deliberately shifts between absurdity, comedy and darker commentary, rather than giving Cruise the kind of straightforward dramatic showcase traditionally associated with an acting campaign. Variety reported that the film’s first reactions were divided precisely because its ambitious choices do not consistently land.

That creates a particular awards problem: even critics impressed by Cruise have questioned whether the film gives his work enough dramatic weight beneath its theatricality. Matt Neglia called it Cruise’s most dynamic and interesting role in years, but argued that Iñárritu’s narrative was too imbalanced toward its “zany but empty theatrics” to allow the performance to develop proper depth. (via Variety)

Some have suggested that the film could find a stronger reception from Academy voters than from mainstream audiences. That split may ultimately determine whether Cruise’s performance can escape the film’s own divisiveness.

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Even without another nomination, Cruise’s relationship with the Academy is already complicated by a career that has long outgrown the need for its highest acting prize.

Tom Cruise has received three competitive acting nominations: Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, and Supporting Actor for Magnolia. He also earned a Best Picture nomination as a producer of Top Gun: Maverick. In 2025, however, the Academy finally gave him an Honorary Oscar for his contribution to cinema.

That makes a potential Digger nomination an interesting continuation rather than a career-defining necessity. Cruise has spent decades becoming almost synonymous with theatrical filmmaking without a competitive acting Oscar.

From flying as Maverick, surviving increasingly elaborate Mission: Impossible stunts as Ethan Hunt, and now disappearing beneath prosthetics to play Digger Rockwell, he has done just about all. 

Cruise may therefore be one of the clearest examples of how an Oscar can recognize a career but not necessarily define one. But Digger still has to overcome its own peculiarities before his performance can make the final journey from ambitious experiment to Best Actor contender.

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Which way is Digger going to take Tom Cruise for the Oscars? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.