Our critic’s must-see October movies, including Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ (really!) - Toronto Star

Also on his list: 'The Social Reckoning,' 'NAZA' and 'You Can See Everything.'

Real-world crises, scandals and buried histories animate October’s most noteworthy theatrical releases.

Two buzzy documentaries, “NAZA” and “You Can See Everything,” promise revealing looks at war and deception, while comedies and dramas including “Digger,” “The Social Reckoning” and “La Bola Negra” turn climate anxiety, social-media power and queer history into urgent screen stories.

A mammoth drifting ice shelf threatening Europe is just the start of the insanity in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s eco-disaster comedy, which is like a feverish blend of Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish “Brazil” and Stanley Kubrick’s gonzo “Dr. Strangelove.” Iñárritu loves to keep us guessing his intentions, and he does so again, but he has a lot to say about people who want the cheap convenience of fossil fuels yet fret about global warming.

Tom Cruise has much on his mind, too, as the culpable and reckless Texas oil tycoon of the title, a dude with greasy hair, a dad bod and screw-you attitude. Cruise has played arrogant bastards before, but this is one of his better turns, right up there with those in “Tropic Thunder” and “Magnolia.” Kudos also to Riz Ahmed, as the scientist trying to explain apocalypse to an a-hole. As for the film’s look, the dystopian production design and Emmanuel Lubezki’s luminous cinematography are on another level.

What’s the buzz: Cruise put his heart and soul into creating Digger Rockwell, whom the actor calls his “most challenging character ever,” since it required hours of applying makeup, prosthetics and fake teeth as well as the crafting of a personality unlike his own.

Why I’m excited: At a time when an advancing Super El Niño weather system threatens the world with major storms, floods and wildfires, it seems obvious an eco-apocalypse is at our doorsteps. “Digger” is both compulsively watchable fiction and a real-life warning shot.

Following the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli leaders stated their military aims in attacking Gaza were to secure the release of hostages, dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization and ensure Gaza could no longer threaten Israel. They were far less candid about the ensuing collateral damage to civilians, a death rate described by the military acronym that gives this award-winning doc its title. NAZA coldly calculates the number of civilians, many of them children, likely to be killed by AI-assisted drones and aircraft, a death tally that can run from single digits into the hundreds. Documentarians Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor spent three years talking to two dozen Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers. “You understand that the goal is to destroy,” one says, his voice thick with regret. These covert interviews, with faces shrouded in darkness and voices masked, were conducted at night on the rooftops of bustling Tel Aviv, a mere 60 kilometres from the ruins of Gaza.

What’s the buzz: The film won the Special Jury Prize at the recent Venice film festival, and co-directors Abraham and Szor were two of the filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning doc “No Other Land,” which chronicles Palestinian resistance to the Israeli military’s demolition and displacement of communities in the southern West Bank.

Why I’m excited: They say truth is the first casualty of war, but the search for it must continue. Through raw testimony from Israeli military personnel, “NAZA” is heartbreaking but essential viewing, questioning the systems that cause and quantify civilian death in modern warfare.

“The Social Network” star Jesse Eisenberg declined to reprise his role as Meta/Facebook overlord Mark Zuckerberg in this new film, which is less a literal sequel than a thematic followup. This could have been a fatal loss for the project, but fortunately, writer-director Aaron Sorkin found an ideal stand-in in Jeremy Strong (“Succession”). The trailer suggests Strong has nailed Zuckerberg’s glassy stare and petulant voice as he insists, “I’m not two years out of a dorm room anymore.” But he may be in serious trouble: real-life whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison of “Anora”) threatens to expose Facebook’s addictive grip on impressionable young users and its tolerance of hate speech. Jeremy Allen White (“The Bear”) plays the Wall Street Journal reporter assigned to crack open “The Facebook Files.”

What’s the buzz: This long-awaited return to Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Network” universe features three rising stars who are eager to show the world what else they can do.

Why I’m excited: Based on Jeff Horwitz’s Wall Street Journal series “The Facebook Files,” the film has real-life relevance and potential impact, coming at a time when social media is being viewed with a more skeptical eye.

“Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that,” wide-eyed tech-fraud felon Elizabeth Holmes tells Nathan Fielder in the teaser for this secret doc he made with Lance Oppenheim (“Primetime”). The better question is why would Holmes, apart from the fact she habitually cons people who put their trust in her, want to invite strangers into her home just four days before she heads to prison?

Fielder, a Canuck cringe comic known for TV’s “The Rehearsal” and “The Curse,” seems both the last guy you’d want to put in this situation and the most obvious choice. It’s guaranteed to be fascinating as he shares living quarters with Holmes and her family for an awkwardly in-depth appraisal of one of the most devious con artists of the 21st century.

What’s the buzz: The film’s ecstatically received surprise premiere at the recent Telluride Film Festival immediately upended Oscar predictions not only for documentary feature but also best picture. 

Why I’m excited: Nothing beats a great doc, especially one that promises to tell us things we don’t already know about a subject.

Spanish writer-directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, known collectively as Los Javis, go big with this lavishly mounted queer historical drama, inspired by revered poet-playwright Federico García Lorca’s unfinished novel of the same name.

Its three interlaced stories move from a 1932 Granada casino, where a young man (Milo Quifes) is shut out amid whispers about his sexuality, to a 1937 Civil War encounter between a Nationalist soldier (singer Guitarricadelafuente) and the wounded Republican captive in his charge, later revealed as Lorca’s real-life last love, Rafael Rodríguez Rapún. A contemporary strand follows a gay historian and author (Carlos González), whose inheritance from a fascist grandfather opens an unsettling door into the past. Penélope Cruz steals her brief scenes as a brassy cabaret performer.

At times the film can be unruly and overripe, but Calvo and Ambrossi bring a rich, theatrical sweep to their reclamation of a queer Spanish history long forced into silence.

What’s the buzz: “La Bola Negra” received the main People’s Choice Award at TIFF ’26, a bellwether prize that almost guarantees a best picture nod at the Oscars. The co-directors earlier won the best director prize at Cannes, sharing it with Paweł Pawlikowski for “Fatherland.”

Why I’m excited: For all its flamboyant excess, “La Bola Negra” is a heartfelt, unapologetically theatrical act of historical reclamation. It finds connection and hard-won joy in lives Spain tried to erase. It’s the rare festival crowd-pleaser with both emotional and political weight.

Psychological thriller Verity (Oct. 2), undead history Black Zombie (Oct. 9), maternal terror Other Mommy (Oct. 9), Canadian icon salute Run Terry Run (Oct. 9), hit-man drama Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (Oct. 9), Cannes winner Fjord (Oct. 16), Hollywood drama Misty Green (Oct. 16), trillionaire tell-all Musk (Oct. 16), Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility (Oct. 16), New York history Once Upon a Time in Harlem (Oct. 23), crime drama The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Oct. 23), solar-powered fable Klara and the Sun (Oct. 23), class satire Possible Love (Oct. 23) and magical rom-com Wicker (Oct. 23).

Peter Howell is a Toronto-based movie critic and a freelance contributor to the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @peterhowellfilm.