FILM · 2013 · USA
Oblivion
- Directed by
- Joseph Kosinski
- Runtime
- 124 min
- Studio
- Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Monolith Pictures
65 archived facts 7 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Jack Harper is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. His existence is brought crashing down when he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows…
Summary: TMDB
47 Interesting Facts About Oblivion
- #002
The opening scene featuring the Universal logo offers the audience a quick survey of how badly the world has been damaged in the film. The Tet sits in orbit like the Odyssey's orbital escape module; the oceans have receded, landmasses bear craters the size of countries, the poles have no ice sheets, and even the word Universal appears worn and damaged.
- #004
A full-size bubble ship with self-opening doors was built, and Tom Cruise, a licensed pilot, provided input on the design of the controls.
- #005
The scene in which Jack Harper waters a small plant at the edge of a cliff was shot at Earl's Peak in Iceland at an altitude of 600 meters. The crew had to use helicopters to bring people and equipment to the shooting location.
- #006
Jack's motorcycle is a Honda CRF450X, chosen for its minimalist design and its ability to handle stunt maneuvers. Its designers hid the exhaust pipes and gave it a tank that holds less than 1 liter of fuel, providing only 20 minutes of riding time.
- #007
Contains a major spoiler — show
On the exterior of Drone 166 there is a Scav drawing, scratched by the Scavs, of Jack's severed head lying at his feet with the x-eyes used in cartoons to show a dead person. This is seen close up in a deleted scene in which Jack says "lovely" upon seeing it.
- #008
Tom Cruise's 50th birthday fell during shooting. To mark the milestone, director Joseph Kosinski gave him one of the film's futuristic motorcycles, and Tom gave Joseph a cast model of the bubble ship in a glass case.
- #009
Disney initially acquired the rights to Joseph Kosinski's script in a heated auction. They later realized, however, that making a PG-rated film based on the script would require many story changes, and the rights were subsequently bought by Universal Pictures.
- #010
Titan, a moon of Saturn, is the second-largest moon in the solar system and the only object besides Earth with liquid (methane) rivers, lakes and rain on its surface. Its surface temperature is cold: -180 degrees Celsius (-350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- #011
Contains a major spoiler — show
While scouting locations at the Empire State Building, Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski witnessed a man proposing to his girlfriend at the spot where Jack Harper proposes to Julia in the film.
- #013
The whooping alarm heard as the Discovery approaches the Tet is taken from sounds actually produced by TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) used in aircraft. These systems help warn flight crews of impending collisions and other flight problems.
- #016
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Jack first arrives at the secluded lake house, he places the book "Lays of Ancient Rome," taken from the ruins of the New York Public Library, on top of another book shown to be a copy of Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities." Both literary works deal with people escaping oppression, in keeping with the film's theme. "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Oblivion" both end with a trick carried out by the main characters. "A Tale of Two Cities" also concerns two men in love with the same woman, one her husband and the other a family friend; set during the French Revolution, the friend takes the husband's place to save him from the guillotine and dies in his stead so the couple can escape and live. This is reflected in the film as well.
- #017
During Jack's voiceover at the start of the film detailing his battle with the Scavs, a ruined tower structure is visible: the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This sequence also shows the remains of the Cyclone roller coaster and the Wonder Wheel on Coney Island, the Pentagon, the Washington Monument and the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., along with a half-submerged airport with wrecked planes in the water and on land.
- #018
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Julia is first found, she is in a sleep pod listed under her maiden name, "J. Rusakova," with no known relationship to anyone else. Later, when Julia wakes beside the cabin, she is in Jack's sleep pod, with "J. Harper" written on the front, her married name and the identity she introduces herself by once the relationship is revealed, or it may also be Jack Harper's capsule.
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
At 1:44:33, as Jack flies toward the Tet, he turns on the data flight recorder to listen to the audio record of the 2017 mission. Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" begins to play, and over it the voice says, "Thank you for that fantastic wake-up call." NASA astronauts have a long-standing tradition of playing music over communications to wake crews from sleep.
- #020
The NASA logo most frequently seen in the film is the "worm" logo the agency used from 1975 to 1992. The classic NASA logo can also be seen in the interior vehicle scenes of the Odyssey.
- #022
The Oblivion project began as an eight-page treatment written by Joseph Kosinski and presented as a comic book to Barry Levine and Jesse Berger of Radical Publishing in 2007. The project was later developed into an illustrated novella timed to coincide with the film's release.
- #023
The poem Jack reads is "Horatius," from "Lays of Ancient Rome," a collection of Thomas Babington Macaulay's narrative poems.
- #024
At his lakeside house, Jack leafs through a collection of vinyl records and is shown the following albums in order: "Next in Line" by Conway Twitty (1968), "Rio" by Duran Duran (1982), "Some Enchanted Evening" by Blue Öyster Cult (1978), "Exile on Main Street" by The Rolling Stones (1972), "The Wall" by Pink Floyd (1979) and "Asia" by Asia (1982).
- #025
The plush gorilla stuffed animal Jack Harper finds in the Empire State Building is King Kong, the giant gorilla who climbs the Empire State Building in the climactic battle of the 1933 film King Kong (1933). It is a common souvenir sold at the Empire State Building.
- #027
The song playing during Jack's first visit to his lakeside house (as he lies down on the grass to sleep) is "Ramble On," the seventh track on Led Zeppelin's "Led Zeppelin II," first released in 1969.
- #028
The coordinates given in the film (41.146576, -73.975739) take you to a cul-de-sac at 17 Mein Dr, New City, New York.
- #029
Asked in a late-2016 interview about the worst job she had ever had, Andrea Riseborough said: "Either shredding duck in a Chinese restaurant, or Oblivion."
- #030
The book Jack finds is "Lays of Ancient Rome" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, and the poem he begins reading is "Horatius." In Roman history, the inadequately defended city is under attack by the Etruscans, and Horatius is in charge of a detachment assigned an impossible task: defending a bridge leading to the city. While Horatius and two companions cross the bridge and fight the invaders, the rest of the detachment tries to destroy the bridge. Horatius orders his two companions back to Rome while he stays to fight the enemy alone. With the bridge then destroyed and no hope of survival, Horatius, in full armor, leaps into the river and dies rather than surrender. The central theme of the lines he reads is dying "for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods." As can be seen, the identity of Jack's "gods" becomes a decisive factor in the film.
- #031
Contains a major spoiler — show
Before triggering the nuclear device and destroying the Tet, Jack reads Canto XXVII of "Horatius" from "Lays of Ancient Rome."
- #032
Under FCC regulations, transmitting music over HAM radio frequencies is largely prohibited. One of the rare occasions when music can be transmitted is when waking astronauts aboard a spacecraft. Because NASA is a civilian organization, it must follow these rules in real life as well. Many HAM radio operators have spoken with spacecraft and the International Space Station, and the frequencies to make contact can easily be found online.
- #033
The two songs heard in the film (in Jack's cabin) are "Ramble On," from Led Zeppelin's 1969 album "Led Zeppelin II," and "A Whiter Shade of Pale," from Procol Harum's 1967 debut album. Both are classics of British rock/progressive rock bands, and "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is based on Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on a G String."
- #034
Universal at one point considered using Horizons as an alternative title for the film but changed its mind.
- #038
The famous locations seen damaged in the film, in chronological order, are: the CN Tower, Coney Island Amusement Park, the Pentagon, the United States Capitol, the Washington Monument, MetLife Stadium, the New York Public Library, the Empire State Building, the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and Grand Central Terminal. A World Trade Center is also seen intact in a flashback scene repeated throughout the film.
- #041
To prepare for her role, Olga Kurylenko watched astronaut training films as well as classic science fiction and romantic films such as Casablanca (1942), Notorious and Solaris, both the Andrei Tarkovsky version and the more recent Steven Soderbergh remake.
- #042
The stereo used by Jack Harper is a 1970 Panasonic Essex Model RS-257S.
- #043
Contains a major spoiler — show
The title and one of the lakeside scenes recall Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard," which also provided the title of another science fiction film dealing with themes of memory and forgetting, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Julia and Jack listen to Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which includes the lines "One of sixteen vestal virgins/Who were leaving for the coast," and Julia tells Jack "the world would forget about us." Pope's poem contains the lines "Divine oblivion of low-thoughted care!" and later, "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!/The world forgetting, by the world forgot./Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!"
- #044
Morgan Freeman had previously been the narrator of another Tom Cruise science fiction film, War of the Worlds (2005).
- #045
Contains a major spoiler — show
The song Julia plays while at the lake house with Jack is "A Whiter Shade of Pale," released in 1967 by the British band Procol Harum.
- #049
Tom Cruise was in the middle of his divorce from Katie Holmes while shooting this film.
- #050
Oblivion marked Tom Cruise's first return to science fiction since Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). After Oblivion he made another science fiction film, Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
- #051
The special premiere at IMAX London took place in the middle of a snowstorm that lasted more than 10 hours and caused traffic problems in the capital. Most of the cast attended, along with several additional guests seated behind them, such as Dexter Fletcher, Bill Paxton and James May.
- #053
Reviewing Oblivion for the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," David Edelstein admitted he had great difficulty following the film's plot. He had to go online to find answers to some of his questions: "Was I confused? Everything will become clear. Not in the most incoherent piece of storytelling in years, and it made me cry, 'What? What?' Over the noise of explosions. It was Wikipedia's 'Oblivion' entry that explained what was going on in the final flashback. A few, if not all, of my complaints were answered on an IMDB board featuring posters debating whether the problem stemmed from our attention deficit or from terrible screenwriting."
- #054
The DVD cover looks extremely similar to the cover of another post-apocalyptic film, I Am Legend (2007); the figure is in almost the same pose, and in both a broken bridge appears behind the figure.
- #055
Oblivion contains two scenes that closely resemble scenes from Mission: Impossible III (2006). The first comes when Jack goes to the library to rest: the walkway he uses has been retracted, so he first has to throw his rifle across, then jumps over, barely making it and pulling himself up — much like the Mission: Impossible III scene in which Ethan throws his rifle and leaps across after Owen Davian's escape causes a drone to blow up part of the bridge, barely reaching the other side and pulling himself up. The second is the moment in Mission: Impossible III when Ethan is about to inject Lindsey with adrenaline; he catches her, says "Lindsey, you're gonna feel this," and injects her, closely mirroring the Oblivion scene in which Jack catches Julia (after she is shot in the desert scene), says "This is going to hurt," and injects her. Julia is also the name of Ethan's wife in Mission: Impossible III (2006).
- #056
This is the only film in which Suri Cruise worked alongside her father, Tom Cruise. Unfortunately, her role was not credited in the titles.
- #058
Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo both appeared in Olympus Has Fallen (2013) the same year this film was released.
- #059
The scene in which Jack and Julia try to escape three killer drones by flying the bubble ship through a narrow canyon closely resembled Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope — the scene in which Luke Skywalker is chased by TIE fighters through the Death Star trench. Even the erratic flying and evasive maneuvers in the narrow canyon were similar.
- #061
At 1:14:33 there is a brief shot of the flame held in the Statue of Liberty's hand.
- #062
Contains a major spoiler — show
After Mission: Impossible III in 2006, this is the second film in which Tom Cruise's character is married to a woman named Julia.
- #063
At 15:48, the line "Tet's offline in 15 minutes" is spoken, nodding to the significance of the fifteen-minute mark in classical cinema, where the plot typically begins to take shape.
- #064
The typeface of Drone #166's text may look familiar. It appears to recall the Commodore 64 computer game "Paradroid," in which you control an unusually circular droid resembling the ones in the film, working to defeat and advance toward progressively more powerful droids, each labeled with a higher number.
- #065
Andrea Riseborough (Victoria) had previously appeared in The Devil's Mistress (2008) and Olga Kurylenko (Julia) in Centurion (2010); both films also starred Michael Fassbender and Dominic West as figures from English history.
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