“Digger” ending explained: Unpacking the wild twist in Tom Cruise’s latest movie
“Digger” ending explained: Unpacking the wild twist in Tom Cruise’s latest movie
Wesley StenzelSat, October 3, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC
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Tom Cruise in ‘Digger’Credit: Warner Bros
This article contains spoilers for Digger.
Key points -
Digger features a massive twist midway through the movie that recontextualizes every moment in the film.
The movie ends on a resoundingly bleak note.
Digger is now playing in theaters.
Can Digger actually digg us out of this mess?
The resounding answer at the end of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new satire is a resounding “no,” as oil baron Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) ultimately damages the planet beyond repair after a cataclysmic accident on one of his oil rigs triggers worldwide flooding as shifting ice shelves collide with multiple coastlines. Yikes!
However, it’s not entirely accurate to say Cruise is playing Digger Rockwell, because a massive twist midway through the film significantly complicates the story. As the kooky protagonist meets with the president of the United States (John Goodman), a tree outside of his house abruptly falls over…and a giant-sized person walks into frame to put it back in its original spot.
Tom Cruise in ‘Digger’Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
After some scattered chatter about technical difficulties, the true reality of the film becomes clear: everything that we’ve seen so far, and nearly every moment contained in Digger’s marketing, is actually an elaborate theatrical stage production within the world of the movie. The fallen tree was merely a prop enlarged with special effects, and Cruise, Goodman, and the rest of the cast we’ve seen up to that point are actually actors rehearsing for the opening night of their satirical play, which we eventually learn is titled Fossil Fools.
A sizable chunk of the rest of the movie revolves around the backstage drama within the theater company, and Cruise’s character, actor Curtis Markson, makes several phone calls with his wife as they worry about their daughter, who has gone missing after boarding a flight amid stormy weather.
Later, we learn that Fossil Fools satirically reframes real events from the world of Digger at least 25 years earlier: Digger Rockwell was real, as was the president played by Goodman’s character Doug, and so were all the other characters in the show.
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Jesse Plemons in ‘Digger’Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros.
And, after a tense conflict between Curtis and the play’s director (Sophie Wilde), the play’s financier, Kenny (Jesse Plemons), reveals that he is actually the nephew of the real Digger Rockwell, who is portrayed by a child actor in the play. Kenny praises the cast and crew’s creativity, humor, and passion, and urges them to continue the production, as he believes it is important to retell and satirize how his relatives’ greed led to a climate catastrophe.
The final stretch of the film takes place during the premiere performance of this new production of Fossil Fools, as we occasionally see an enraptured audience watching Curtis and co. perform the play.
In the final scene of the show, Digger and his family have been exiled from society to one of their company’s old oil rigs, and we learn that a new American president has cut off the rig’s access to supplies. Digger then hallucinates a fully stocked walk-in refrigerator and goes outside the rig, where he shares a tender moment with young Kenny. He then dismisses his nephew and leaps off of the rig and into the water.
Tom Cruise and Sophie Wilde in ‘Digger’Credit: Warner Bros.
We then see Curtis emerge from the water tank backstage, and he’s greeted with thunderous applause by both the audience and his castmates. His wife arrives at the theater and shares the good news that their daughter has been located (thanks to Kenny’s global intelligence firm) and that she’ll land safely within a couple of hours.
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However, the festivities are cut short by a blaring alarm, which prompts everyone in the theater to pull out gas masks and cover their faces. The theater doors then open, revealing the outside world for the first time, and we see the grim reality of the planet Digger Rockwell has ruined: the skies are grey, the streets are flooded, and everything looks and feels awful. The credits then roll as we see drones overhead, mild civil unrest, and graffiti that says “compliance is freedom.” The soundtrack is abruptly interrupted by that same alarm that punctuated the play, only louder, as if to suggest that we, too, are about to experience some kind of extreme weather event.
Digger is now playing in theaters.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
