diff --git a/commit-graph.c b/commit-graph.c
index 8c4c7262c8..00614acd65 100644
--- a/commit-graph.c
+++ b/commit-graph.c
@@ -891,6 +891,30 @@ static int find_commit_pos_in_graph(struct commit *item, struct commit_graph *g,
 	}
 }
 
+struct commit *lookup_commit_in_graph(struct repository *repo, const struct object_id *id)
+{
+	struct commit *commit;
+	uint32_t pos;
+
+	if (!repo->objects->commit_graph)
+		return NULL;
+	if (!search_commit_pos_in_graph(id, repo->objects->commit_graph, &pos))
+		return NULL;
+	if (!repo_has_object_file(repo, id))
+		return NULL;
+
+	commit = lookup_commit(repo, id);
+	if (!commit)
+		return NULL;
+	if (commit->object.parsed)
+		return commit;
+
+	if (!fill_commit_in_graph(repo, commit, repo->objects->commit_graph, pos))
+		return NULL;
+
+	return commit;
+}
+
 static int parse_commit_in_graph_one(struct repository *r,
 				     struct commit_graph *g,
 				     struct commit *item)
diff --git a/commit-graph.h b/commit-graph.h
index 96c24fb577..04a94e1830 100644
--- a/commit-graph.h
+++ b/commit-graph.h
@@ -40,6 +40,14 @@ int open_commit_graph(const char *graph_file, int *fd, struct stat *st);
  */
 int parse_commit_in_graph(struct repository *r, struct commit *item);
 
+/*
+ * Look up the given commit ID in the commit-graph. This will only return a
+ * commit if the ID exists both in the graph and in the object database such
+ * that we don't return commits whose object has been pruned. Otherwise, this
+ * function returns `NULL`.
+ */
+struct commit *lookup_commit_in_graph(struct repository *repo, const struct object_id *id);
+
 /*
  * It is possible that we loaded commit contents from the commit buffer,
  * but we also want to ensure the commit-graph content is correctly
diff --git a/revision.c b/revision.c
index 80a59896b9..0dabb5a0bc 100644
--- a/revision.c
+++ b/revision.c
@@ -360,20 +360,18 @@ static struct object *get_reference(struct rev_info *revs, const char *name,
 				    unsigned int flags)
 {
 	struct object *object;
+	struct commit *commit;
 
 	/*
-	 * If the repository has commit graphs, repo_parse_commit() avoids
-	 * reading the object buffer, so use it whenever possible.
+	 * If the repository has commit graphs, we try to opportunistically
+	 * look up the object ID in those graphs. Like this, we can avoid
+	 * parsing commit data from disk.
 	 */
-	if (oid_object_info(revs->repo, oid, NULL) == OBJ_COMMIT) {
-		struct commit *c = lookup_commit(revs->repo, oid);
-		if (!repo_parse_commit(revs->repo, c))
-			object = (struct object *) c;
-		else
-			object = NULL;
-	} else {
+	commit = lookup_commit_in_graph(revs->repo, oid);
+	if (commit)
+		object = &commit->object;
+	else
 		object = parse_object(revs->repo, oid);
-	}
 
 	if (!object) {
 		if (revs->ignore_missing)