Digger
I’d seen that there was a new Tom Cruise movie coming out this fall called Digger, but I was not prepared for the trailer, in which we see Cruise playing a dipshit oligarch in what appears to be a Dr. Strangelove-style satire/thriller.
The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.
The film is directed by Alejandro Iñárritu (Amores perros, Birdman, The Revenant) and also stars John Goodman as a geriatric president, Sandra Hüller, and Jesse Plemons. Digger has just moved near the top of my most-anticipated movies of 2026 list.
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I'm not completely sure why, but this looks like it would be really good.
This looks like another movie with a lot of old white men doing manly things with bombs, destruction and planes, elevated by the glorious Sandra Hüller. For a female-focused alternative with a lot more Sandra Hüller, I highly recommend the ambitious and artistic documentary feature "Jemand, der ich einmal war" about the German poet Ingeborg Bachmann - it's running in cinemas here now and will surely go to streaming afterwards.
Came here to say "and hardly a woman in sight," but yours seems like a more productive comment. Thank you.
I mean, you can't have a satire about a bunch of moronic oligarchs and politicians destroying the Earth without a bunch of old white dudes doing stereotypically manly things?
If you'd enjoy a ladyperson as a self-aggrandizing overlord bent on domination and societal destruction, Kate Winslet in The Regime is a treat. Different mood: Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer.
Another female-led political satire about global destruction is Rumours (2024) by the amazing Guy Madden (of “My Winnipeg” fame). Cate Blanchett and Nikki Amuka-Bird play European leaders at a G7 that goes horribly wrong.
I thought Iñárritu's "Bardo" was also great (and greatly underrated), but many people disliked it for the very reasons I liked it. De gustibus, etc.
Iñárritu also made the VR movie/experience “CARNE y ARENA”. It was the first VR to premiere at Cannes, and the first VR to win an Oscar. I went when it was in DC in 2017, and it was life-changing. One person at a time, VR goggles and a backpack, alone in a room covered in sand. The VR begins, and you’re among a group attempting to cross the desert from Mexico into the U.S. Spoiler alert: when the Border Patrol helicopter swoops in to get you, the thunderous THX sound and massive wind machines in the ceiling make you completely forget you’re in a VR. It’s haunting and devastating.
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