- Batman: There is an alley close to the GCPD headquarters in the northern end of Gotham that shows up in backgrounds every once and again named after the title character.
Film - Live-Action
- They Cloned Tyrone: Yo-Yo has a large collection of Nancy Drew books from her childhood, which she uses as a guide to help her and her companions solve the conspiracy.
- In Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski novels, this is one of Intrepid Reporter Murray Ryerson's nicknames for Warshawski (along with "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and Wonder Woman).
- Norwegian author Tormod Haugen wrote a novel called På Sporet Av Frøken Detektiv ("On Miss Detective's Trail") in which an Author Avatar named Tor Haug travels to River Heights to interview Nancy Drew, but keeps missing her because there's a mystery going on that she's going around and trying to solve. He does meet and get to know several familiar faces, including Hannah Gruen and Ned Nickerson, but though he gets dragged into the same mystery and does a lot to help solve it, he never actually manages to meet up with Nancy herself. But even if she doesn't actually appear in person, the book is in many ways a Deconstruction of Nancy as a character, particularly her status as The Ace; through the many conversations the author has with Nancy's friends and relations, it becomes obvious that while she is well-liked and admired by most, it's almost impossible to get close to her or live up to her impossible standards.
- In the Fantasy Island episode "Nobody's There," a private detective remembers being obsessed with Nancy Drew as a child and reading each book at least six times.
- Veronica Mars: In the third season episode "There's Got to be a Morning After Pill", when Veronica is trying to find out who took pictures of her going in and out of a women's clinic (she was trying to find out who slipped a classmate a drug causing her to miscarry), she and her father Keith go to an ultra-Christian group, and Keith introduces themselves as Carson Drew and her assistant Nancy. This also possibly a nod to critics who had praised Veronica as an edgier Nancy Drew.
- In the Law & Order: UK episode "Alesha", her supervisor George Castle angrily refers to her as "playing Nancy bloody Drew" regarding her taking it upon herself to investigate whether a doctor had molested a friend of hers—and promptly becoming a victim herself.
- In Murder By Choice, one of the suspects, Freddie Wolf, repeatedly calls the protagonist, Carla Page, "Nancy Drew" after catching her one time snooping around the pool patio.
- Hark! A Vagrant: In Kate Beaton's Nancy Drew comics, she takes the covers to old books in the series and comes up with... alternate explanations for the scenes shown.
Other characters are often shown worrying about Nancy's mental health.
- Futurama: In "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", Fry looks for reading material to use against the leader of the Brain Spawn. He dismisses Nancy Drew as being too highbrow and The Hardy Boys as too lowbrow before settling on The Bonfire of the Vanities.
- The Venture Bros..: In “Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman”, in addition to being the Distaff Counterpart to the eponymous brothers, the Quymn sisters are named “Nancy” and “Drew”. (Considering that their male counterparts are based off the Hardy Boys themselves).
