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Tom Cruise is unrecognisable as he transforms in Digger trailer - in role he took 40 years to prepare for
Cruise plays a wealthy oil tycoon in the new satirical comedy from double Oscar winner Alejandro G Iñárritu.
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- Patrick Cremona
Published: Tuesday, 14 July 2026 at 11:52 am
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Following a few brief teasers in recent weeks, a full trailer has been released for upcoming movie Digger – finally giving us an in-depth look at Tom Cruise's transformation for what he hopes might be an Oscar-winning role.
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The film is directed by two-time Oscar-winner Alejandro G Iñárritu, with the synopsis teasing, "The most powerful man in the world races to prove he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything."
In the trailer we get a look at both that disaster and his attempt at redemption, with Cruise almost unrecognisable under heavy prosthetics in the central role of oil tycoon Digger Rockwell.
"Everything changes," he says at the beginning of the trailer. "One day you're a cat, next day you're just ashes in a box."
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Later, we see him having a rather abrasive video call with an employee stationed in Greenland, who warns him to shut down one of his operations at risk of causing a catastrophic incident.
Digger clearly doesn't back down, and the aftermath proves to be just as devastating as promised, with various panicked meetings following as a result.
"Digger here got us into this mess," the US President played by John Goodman says. "And Digger's gonna dig us out again!"
The trailer also includes glimpses at several of the other high-profile cast members including Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jesse Plemons. You can check it out in full below:
Speaking about the film at a trailer launch event in LA last week, Iñárritu explained how "the film needed Tom" and he had hoped to work with the Mission: Impossible star "since the beginning of the century."
The Mexican director continued: "I admired him as an actor for years, and that wasn’t a surprise for me. The surprise was discovering that the human being behind the actor was just as extraordinary as the performances I will see throughout his career."
"The transformation he went through was astonishing," added González Iñárritu, with Cruise telling him, "'It took me 40 years to become this character.'"
While it's far too early to make any proper predictions at this stage – especially given no one has actually seen the film – Cruise has been labelled as one of the favourites to win best actor at next year's Oscars.
It would be the first competitive Oscar win of his long career, although he was previously nominated for Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, while he was awarded an honorary Oscar at this year's ceremony.
Digger is scheduled to be released on 2 October 2026.
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Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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