Advertising:
- Salvador Dalí made an ad for the French chocolate brand Lanvin in 1968. The ad starts with the first notes of the Scherzo from the Ninth Symphony.
- Classicaloid brings Beethoven to modern day Japan and gives him Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a buddy. This Beethoven makes gyoza his reason to live, though - he'll only conduct music if he's triggered.
Films — Animation
- Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony is used in Fantasia and his Fifth Symphony at the start of Fantasia 2000.
- In Turning Red, he is one of the composers Mei compares 4*Town to in her presentation.
Films — Live-Action
- In Five Easy Pieces, Bobby Dupea's middle name is Eroica.
- Despite the name, he does not feature in the Beethoven movies or Beethoven: The Animated Series. However, his music is heard in the scene in which the dog receives his name
. - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure features the two titular duo time travelling to the early 19th century, abducting Beethoven (played by Clifford David), and taking him to The '80s for a history report. Hilariously enough, he takes up a liking to Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet.
- In Far and Away, Shannon's mother tells her to play something "fanciful and light" on the piano. She plays the beginning of "Moonlight Sonata" before suddenly switching to a piece of modern American band music.
- In Color Me Perfect, Dina wakes up Mitch and Linda at 2 AM by blasting "Ode to Joy" and pretending to be a conductor.
- In Leo the Last, Laszlo plays "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano.
- In Journey of the Heart, Tony plays "Moonlight Sonata." Janice complains that it's not peppy enough. Thomas says, "It's the Moonlight Sonata! It's about angst!"
- His life story is shown in the Biopic Immortal Beloved, played by Gary Oldman.
- In Day of the Dead (1985), Logan uses "Ode to Joy" to teach Bub the zombie how to use a cassette player.
- A Clockwork Orange: In the novel, as well as the film version, Alex adores the music of Beethoven as one of his few passions other than rape and violence. The film version, A Clockwork Orange, uses music from the Ninth Symphony on the soundtrack, which causes Soundtrack Dissonance due to it actually being composed as an ode to peace.
- In The Amy Virus, classical music buff Erica Witt goes by Eroica.
- In Eye of a Fly, Ernest plays Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in his head. The record he memorized it from was a live performance, and to his annoyance someone coughs in the second movement, but he can't edit it out in his mind.
- In Every Shiny Thing, Ryan, who already knew how to play music by ear, learns how to read sheet music, and demonstrates his ability by playing the beginning of a Beethoven sonata.
- In The Speed of Sound, Wicked Cultured assassin Mr. Elliott listens to the overture to Fidelio on the radio.
- In Marcelo in the Real World, Marcelo listens to Beethoven in an MRI machine so doctors can study his brain activity when he listens to recorded music as opposed to when he listens to the music in his head. Marcelo's ringtone is "Ode to Joy."
- Bewilderment: When Theo was having his neural activity recorded for the decoded neurofeedback, the doctors had him listen to "Moonlight Sonata."
- Doctor Who: In the Cold Open to "Before the Flood", the Twelfth Doctor explains the Bootstrap Paradox via an example about a man who travels back in time to meet Beethoven only to discover he doesn't exist, so the man becomes Beethoven by publishing the sheet music he brought with him. The Doctor makes a point of noting that this is all a hypothetical, and that he's personally met the real Beethoven ("Nice chap. Very intense. Loved an arm-wrestle.").
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "The Thing Lay Still", "Moonlight Sonata" serves as the Bookends of the Season 1 finale.
- Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is the theme music of Judge Judy.
- Kamen Rider Ghost features Beethoven as one of fifteen main Eyecons, based on fifteen different historical people. Assuming Beethoven Damashii, Takeru/Ghost can create energy constructs of musical notes through sound and use them in a manner similar to how a conductor controls an orchestra via hand gestures.
Music
- His Fifth Symphony is given a disco remix treatment as "A Fifth of Beethoven" in Saturday Night Fever by Walter Murphy, who would compose the themes to Seth MacFarlane animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show.
- A bust of Beethoven can be seen on the album cover of Frank Zappa's We're Only in It for the Money. Actually Zappa wanted a bust of his real hero Edgard Varèse, but since they couldn't find any he settled on one of Beethoven instead.
- When Yoko Ono (who'd had piano lessons from the age of 4) played Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" to John Lennon, he was inspired to write The Beatles' song "Because". Lennon later claimed that the chords of "Because" are based on the "Moonlight Sonata" played backwards. They aren't.
- Sparks released a Concept Album called Lil' Beethoven in 2002. It told the story of how the title character - a Reclusive Artist and the present day descendent of composer Ludwig van Beethoven - had been approached by the brothers to work on new material with them, the nine songs bearing the fruits of this supposed collaboration.
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra released a Rock Opera named Beethoven's Last Night about his work.
- He is mentioned as being dead in the song "Decomposing Composers" by Michael Palin sang on Monty Python's Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album.
- Chuck Berry titled "Roll Over Beethoven" after him, considering he could roll over in his grave if he heard Rock & Roll. The song was also notably covered by the Electric Light Orchestra, Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Beatles.
- Peanuts: Generations of children first became aware of Beethoven through the character Schroeder's obsessive Loony Fandom of the composer, a trait originally devised as a means for cartoonist Charles Schulz to parody one of the first children's fads, the cult of Davy Crockett merchandise in the 1950s. According to the Beethoven Exhibit at the Charles Schulz museum in Santa Rosa, Schulz liked Mozart more, but decided that "Beethoven" was inherently funnier as a name.
- Canadian figure skater Joseph Phan performed to "Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor Concerto)" for his long program during the 2019-2020 competitive season. Coincidentally, his training mate, Corey Circelli, also used a Beethoven piece ("Moonlight Sonata") for his long program during the same year.
- The second Earthworm Jim game featured the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata' as the background music for the "Jim's now a Blind Cave Salamander!/Villi People" level, while the third movement is used as the background music for the final level, "See Jim Run, Run Jim Run."
- One of the late game tracks in Iconoclasts is "Moonlight", which borrows the early parts of Moonlight Sonata.
- The introduction sequence of Nehrim starts with a quote from a letter Beethoven wrote to a friend while working on the Symphony No. 2:Ich will dem Schicksal in den Rachen greifen,
ganz niederbeugen soll es mich gewiß nicht.note - In Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (1997), you have to help him put his fifth and sixth symphonies back together after his original copies were stolen by Carmen's thief.
- Epic Rap Battles of History: Beethoven once battled against Justin Bieber.I'm committing music murder in the major third degree,
The name's Beethoven, motherfucker, maybe you've heard of me? - Magic Mike has a parody video, The REAL Reason Beethoven Hasn’t Released New Music. It ends with Beethoven dropping his Tenth Symphony.
- Time Squad visits him in a wrong timeline where he became a wrestler and has to be persuaded to become a composer again.
