Joseph Kosinski’s post-apocalyptic film Oblivion explores the creative and subversive potential of the liminal space between different sets of structured realities. The film’s protagonist Jack escapes the surveilling cameras of the machine entity that controls the fictional world of the future by entering the in-between and transitory space of a hidden, idyllic valley. The valley constitutes a spatio-temporal free zone away from the dangers of the wasteland and the authority of societal structures. In this liminal space, the protagonist examines memories of a problematic past and produces dreams of an uncertain future. In my talk, I draw on liminality as a theoretical framework to explore how the protagonist progresses from anonymity as a numbered worker to a state of identity as husband and commander, made possible through his visits to the liminal space of the valley. Liminality is here understood broadly not only as a state of being or a period of time but also as a physical space ‘betwixt and between’ contrasting positions and differ- ent realities.