Anime & Manga
- Candy & Cigarettes: The assassin Henry Magritte wears a bowler hat and carries an apple, which is briefly in front of his face, just like The Son of Man by his namesake.
- The stand Wonder of U belonging to the main antagonist of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion makes heavy use of Magritte's imagery, fitting for a stand that bends reality in odd ways.
Comic Books
- Dylan Dog: The classic story "Golconda!" (issue #41) features a homage to Magritte's painting with the same name by recreating it with the descent of the Man with the Bowler ("L'uomo con la bombetta"), who's a blue/orange-driven Reality Warper that commits a series of surreal killings.
Film - Live Action
- Collective Invention (Dolyeon Byeoni - "mutant" in Korean) is a Korean film about a mutant fish-man. The English-language title is a reference to Collective Invention, Magritte's painting of a mermaid that has a fish's face instead of a fish's tail.
- The Exorcist: The scene that was used on the poster and video cover where Father Merrin is standing in front of the MacNeil family's house at night is inspired by L' Empire des Lumières (The Empire of Light
). - The Thomas Crown Affair: The Son of Man is a stolen painting. The protagonist of the film uses numerous accomplices, all dressed like the subject of the painting, to confuse the police while he enters the museum to apparently return the painting he stole earlier in the film. The bowler-hatted men all carry identical briefcases full of copies of The Son of Man.
- Toys includes several references to Magritte's works.
Literature
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid includes a discussion of The Treachery of Images (the "this is not a pipe" painting). One character takes the pipe out of the painting and smokes it.
- In the Doctor Who New Adventures novel Transit, the Doctor has an encounter with a group of non-physical alien intelligences who take surreal humanoid forms like the subject of The Son of Man.
Live Action TV
- The fifth series of Taskmaster features a portrait of the host done in parody of The Son of Man.
- At the beginning of the Doctor Who story "Terror of the Autons", the un-named Time Lord who warns the Doctor of the Master's arrival on Earth wears a bowler hat and business suit and levitates in mid-air, in an homage to Golconda.
- QI episode "Portraits and Paintings" features Alan Davies dressed up as "The Son of Man," complete with a prop apple in front of his face when introduced.
Manga
- In Jojolion, the character Satoru Akefu's design and ability are highly inspired by René Magritte, and especially The Son of Man, with a dapper outfit, bowler hat, and his head and face always blocked out by something. The cover art of Chapter 96 and Volume 23, both featuring Satoru, are a direct shoutout to another painting, Golconda.
Music
- The Beatles' company Apple was inspired by Magritte's work.
- La Chambre d' 'Écoute (The Listening Room) was used as the album cover of Beck-Ola by Jeff Beck.
- The faceless man on the back cover of the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here (1975) is a homage to Magritte.
- Roger Daltrey's album cover for One of the Boys was inspired by Magritte's La Reproduction Interdite (Not to Be Reproduced).
- The image of The Son of Man appears in Michael Jackson's music video for "Scream".
- The cover art for Gary Numan's album The Pleasure Principle is inspired by Magritte's The Pleasure Principle (Portrait of Edward James).
- Paul Simon's song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War", from Hearts and Bones, is named after a 1967 portrait of Magritte, his wife and their dog, and imagines what life was like for them at the time.
- Yes' music video to "Astral Traveller" features a man who walks away from the camera and is revealed to have a large picture of an apple floating in front of his face, like the subject of The Son of Man.
- The album cover of Styx's The Grand Illusion is an homage to Magritte's Le blanc-seing (The Blank Signature).
Theatre
- After Magritte by Tom Stoppard is about what happens to a group of people after they go to see an exhibition of Magritte's paintings, but is also "after Magritte" in the sense of "an artwork in the style of", beginning and ending with a surreal tableau.
Video Games
- Harvey's Box, the fourth in the surreal Cube Escape series, includes an appearance by the inverted mermaid depicted in Collective Invention.
- Kentucky Route Zero: The forest in Act 2 includes a homage to Le blanc-seing (The Blank Signature), a painting of a woman riding a horse through a forest that does weird things with perspective.
- In MacGuffin's Curse, a sword on display in the museum is captioned, "Ceci n'est pas une sabre".
- In Poker Night 2, Sam laments that he can't get Max to wear his beret anymore, and Max walks by wearing said beret and saying "ceci n'est pas un chapeau."
Web Video
- The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, episode "Critical Examinations of Art": Adele does a portrait of her father in the style of The Son of Man while learning about modern art.
Western Animation
- The animated short film Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase is basically a collage of many paintings, one of which is Magritte's reverse mermaid, Collective Invention.
- The Muppet Babies (1984) episode "The Weirdo Zone" has Gonzo appearing in various parodies of Magritte paintings.
- The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror IV" has a scene at an art gallery with the Simpsons inserted in to famous paintings, including Homer depicted as the Son of Man painting.
- Wander over Yonder: The curator in "The Boy Wander" is the Son of Man with a Picasso face.
- We Bare Bears: In "Panda's Art", Panda makes various paintings of Charlie based on famous paintings, including Son of Man. When they talk in an Imagine Spot, the Son of Man Charlie asks "What's going on?" because he can't see due to the apple in front of his face.
