diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index ae052b5e3315..0f870ba43942 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -1917,6 +1917,15 @@ retry:
 		     current->flags & PF_EXITING))
 		goto force;
 
+	/*
+	 * Prevent unbounded recursion when reclaim operations need to
+	 * allocate memory. This might exceed the limits temporarily,
+	 * but we prefer facilitating memory reclaim and getting back
+	 * under the limit over triggering OOM kills in these cases.
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(current->flags & PF_MEMALLOC))
+		goto force;
+
 	if (unlikely(task_in_memcg_oom(current)))
 		goto nomem;
 
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 744f926af442..76fda2268148 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -3043,7 +3043,9 @@ unsigned long try_to_free_mem_cgroup_pages(struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
 					    sc.gfp_mask,
 					    sc.reclaim_idx);
 
+	current->flags |= PF_MEMALLOC;
 	nr_reclaimed = do_try_to_free_pages(zonelist, &sc);
+	current->flags &= ~PF_MEMALLOC;
 
 	trace_mm_vmscan_memcg_reclaim_end(nr_reclaimed);