Box-Office Rival Anne Hathaway Calls Tom Cruise's 'Digger' 'Brilliant'

Her 'Verity' is outselling Alejandro G. Iñárritu's satire, but she gave it five stars in her first Letterboxd review.

Anne Hathaway just gave a perfect score to the movie her own thriller is beating at the box office: Tom Cruise's "Digger."

"I loved this brilliant movie. It's smart and trippy and aggressive and funny and ambitious," the "Verity" star wrote on Letterboxd, the social platform for film fans, Deadline reported Thursday. She gave Alejandro G. Iñárritu's satire five stars, a 10/10 and a shovel emoji, which is about as on the nose as a review gets for a movie called "Digger."

It was her first review on the site, according to Deadline, and she spent it on the competition. "Verity" is the movie burying "Digger" at the box office. Her listed favorites there include "Moonstruck," "It Happened One Night," "Mirror" and "Phantom Thread." Until Thursday, none of them had a written review from her.

Cruise's numbers are rough. "Digger" opened to $8 million domestically and $20 million worldwide, and opening-night audiences graded it a C+ on CinemaScore. Deadline's own estimate puts the film's potential loss near $150 million.

That loss doesn't just hang on the star's name. Cruise produced "Digger" and also stars in it as Digger Rockwell, an oil baron past his prime whose drilling sets loose an environmental catastrophe. After the opening, he wrote on Instagram that he was proud of the film. He didn't stop at his marquee co-stars, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Sandra Hüller: he thanked the entire cast and crew for their dedication and hard work.

Hathaway is the most surprising name in a small group of famous people vouching for the film. Mandy Patinkin, the "Homeland" star, posted a video calling "Digger" "one of the greatest films I have ever seen," Deadline reported. Deadline has also reported that Guillermo del Toro praised it. They're pushing back against critics who split on the film.

None of those raves changes what happened on opening weekend. Hathaway's pitch is for the people who skipped it: "It's worth making the time see and decide for yourself what you make of it."

Source: Deadline, retrieved October 9, 2026.