Living in Oblivion is a 1995 American independent satirical black comedy film written and directed by Tom DiCillo, and starring Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, Danielle von Zerneck, James LeGros and Peter Dinklage in his film debut.

The catering crew is underfunded and apathetic, deciding not to replace a carton of milk on the craft service table for a week.

On the set, just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong; shots are spoiled because of how the mic boom is visible; the camera assistant fails to keep the shot in focus, a light gets blown which then causes Cora, the actress playing the mother, to forget her lines and Nicole, the actress playing Ellen, to become increasingly unfocused and careless.

Unfortunately, the scene was not captured on film; cinematographer and camera operator Wolf, who has been diluting the substandard coffee with spoiled milk, was vomiting in the toilet throughout.

Early the same morning, the film's lead actor Chad Palomino gets dressed in Nicole's hotel room.

He keeps changing his mind about where to stand and continually moves to places where he is either invisible or badly lit by scenic light.

Nicole gets frustrated by Chad's egomania, and when he starts to stroke her head, she briefly loses her cool and apologizes.

Later the same day, the crew is setting up for a dream sequence in which Nicole, as Ellen, stands still, while the ill-tempered dwarf actor Tito walks around her with an apple.

Nick is delighted and decides to keep the new dream sequence, and there is a tense moment while the sound mixer records 30 seconds of room tone.

[2] Living in Oblivion was rejected by all producers, but the actors and friends of the director felt so strongly about the project that they financed it.

[3] Two of the producers, Michael Griffiths and Hilary Gilford, were given parts in the movie for helping to finance the film.

The website's consensus reads, "Living in Oblivion dives into the folly of filmmaking with a sharp satire that sends up indie cinema while working as an entertaining independent picture in its own right.

"[7] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".