References to The Usual Suspects in other media.
Comedy
- Nish Kumar uses Söze as a standard for Recognition Failure during a Live at the Apollo bit about the drummer from Coldplay.That is the extent to which this guy's anonymity is a borderline superpower: he is in the most famous episode of one of the most popular television shows in the world, doing the thing he is famous for, and no one noticed. That is Keyser Söze shit!
- Dogs of C-Kennel: One strip about "Ideas That Didn't Make It"
was a week of only using lines from the film, which failed because they quickly ran out of family-friendly dialogue.
- Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Near the end of the film, the information on Nazarbayev's wall allows Borat and Tutar to realise that Kazakhstan created the SARS CoV-2 virus and used them to spread it. This entire sequence, capped off with a slow-motion shot of Borat dropping his glass in shock, is a direct homage.
- Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever: Grumpy Cat unfavorably compares George to Keyser Söze.
- Inglourious Basterds has a slow-motion shot of Marcel flicking his cigarette and lighting a fire.
- Opposite Day: When Grandpa Jack and Grandma Martha had to stand in a police lineup, the five other kids taking part are dressed up as the lineup from the film poster.
- Parodying the ending, Scary Movie's Twist Ending reveals Doofy to be the mastermind killer. He drops his pretense of being mentally handicapped, gets into a car, and is driven away.
- Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball: The Once More, with Clarity reveal that Weed is "Hal Leuco" and masterminded the events of the film to wipe out all evidence of his terrorism campaign is done very much like the reveal of Keyser Söze's identity.
- The Wedding Ringer: Gretchen noticing that Doug's groomsmen all had line-of-sight names plays out exactly like Kujan's realization.
- Wrongfully Accused: After Ryan exits the bait shop, John Walsh pieces together the string of lies that Ryan created, which he made using various items and signs in the bait shop. John drops his coffee in slow motion, which shatters on the floor.
- Spider-Man: Sinister Six Trilogy: The Machiavelli Club is a special society for the Wicked Cultured. Söze is among the club's many pop-culturally villainous members.
- Billions: Dollar Bill's response to Chuck in "The Deal" is "I'm Keyser Söze, motherfucker."
- A Black Lady Sketch Show: "What Up I'm Three" is centered around a woman who insists she's adopted a toddler, refuting that the adoptee is clearly a grown woman unconvincingly acting like a child. Out of sight of the "mother," the camera shows her uneven gait turning into a confident crip walk.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "The Puppet Show" Person as Verbs Söze.Xander: The dummy tells us he's a demon hunter.... He takes off, and now there's a brain. Does anybody else feel like they've been Keyser Sözed?
- Cobra Kai: Sam calls Robby's fake limp trick "pulling a Keyser Söze."
- Cougar Town: Andy is compared to Keyser Söze for his skill at manipulating women, with the episode's plot leading quite naturally to his shedding a limp at the end.
- CSI: Cyber: At the end of "The Walking Dead," Daniel realizes that every name that Stella used in her story of being a low-level hacker was taken from details around the office. He openly calls out "she Keyser Söze-d us!"
- Daredevil (2015): The opening shots of emergency workers attending to the boat that was blown up by Castle in "The Dark at the End of the Tunnel" call to mind the cinematography of the aftermath of The Usual Suspects's opening boat explosion.
- Derry Girls: The B-plot of "Ms De Brún and the Child of Prague" features the adults of the Quinn-McCool family trying to watch The Usual Suspects, desperate to see the ending after their theater is evacuated mid-screening. Sister Michael unintentionally spoils it for them, and the final shot of the episode mimics the poster for the movie.
- The Good Place makes multiple references in "Michael's Gambit":
- The initial shot of all four humans standing side-by-side after the clown door to Eleanor's bedroom closes alludes to the film poster's criminal line-up of possible suspects.
- Eleanor breaking down how Michael's been subtly arranging the humans into torturing one another complete with flashbacks showing how he encouraged and preyed upon their worst personality traits is meant to be a reference to the extended flashback speech that reveals the identity of Keyser Söze.
- Happy Endings: The ending of "The Marry Prankster" is a direct reference to the film, with Alex acting as the Keyser Söze of the group.
- Hellcats has the case of Kobayashi v. Tennessee. Kobayashi was the name of Keyser Söze's lawyer and shared a very important trait with the case bearing the same name: being completely made up.
- Key & Peele: "Cat Poster" is a full send-up of Verbal Kint's interrogation, right down to Peele's clothes, hair and speech mannerisms.
- NCIS: In "Being Bad," McGee and Ellie note that the villain of the week who had been pretending to be gullible and practically blind and deaf totally "Keyzer Söze-ed" them, but since their usual source of movie references has left and the two new agents aren't as into pop culture, the reference falls flat.
- Person of Interest: After trying to figure out who Elias is for the whole of "Witness," Reese discovers too late it's the nebbish, helpless character who's been in his grasp the whole time.
- Psych: In "Shawn 2.0," the movie trivia question Shawn answers in an attempt to win a free breakfast is "How many times is the F-Bomb dropped during The Usual Suspects?" Unfortunately for him, Declan points out that he missed one.
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: The Line-of-Sight Alias that Kimmy constructs for her stepfather is Keyzer Söze.
Music
- Space references Söze in "Voodoo Roller":Keyser Söze's real so they say
But I don't believe a word
- Dino Attack RPG: The Trigger/Silencia flashback draws heavy inspiration from the film:
- There's the nature of its botched heist that killed most of those involved and their deaths at the hands of Venomosa.
- From the same flashback, Verbal and Keaton were both named after characters from the movie.
- Deniro's death was inspired by that of McManus.
- Dark Heresy: There's a quote in the core rulebook from one "'Verbal' Boze", a Scum.
- Evil Genius: Lord Kane's given name, according to some of the more obscure game files? Kaiser Söze.
- Exit Fate: Like his mastermind namesake, there's no one in the State Union who can outsmart General Keyser.
- One of the gangsters in Max Payne, Rico Muerte, is described as "the typical Keyser Söze."
- PAYDAY 2:
- The Gage Assault update adds an achievement called "The Unusual Suspects."
- The Satan mask's description text references the "greatest trick the devil ever pulled" line.
- The Secret World: The Illuminati after-mission report to "The Sound of Children" features Geary quoting the film in her attempts to explain just how dangerous the Keyser Söze analogue Lilith is.
- Unheard: Case 3 is a Whole-Plot Reference, focusing on a bunch of small-time crooks that are (almost) all connected to the same mysterious backer, with one of them even named Kint.
- Warcraft: Among the many Shout-Out cheat codes is keysersoze.
- Xenosaga: In Episode I's database, it's mentioned that, in the official records, Gaignun is listed as the heir to the industrialist Soze Kukai. It, along with Gaignun taking up the name Kukai, is just part of the charade set up to make the Kukai Foundation look better during its inception. So, Soze didn't really exist.
- The Amazing World of Gumball: "The Remote" ends with Gumball flashing back as he realizes how they all fell for Anais's plan to get the TV, including her inventing a brand name via Line-of-Sight Alias.
- American Dad!:
- Stan vows never to reveal the true endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. However, he mixes up his twist endings.I took sacred vows on our wedding day and I don't take vows lightly. Like when I saw an early screening of The Sixth Sense, and vowed to never tell anyone the big twist at the end, where it turns out that Haley Joel Osment is Keyser Söze.
- Roger alludes to Keyser Söze when he gives "Wheels" the full name of "Squirt 'Wheels' Cinnabon" based on items left on top of a cabinet.
- Stan vows never to reveal the true endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. However, he mixes up his twist endings.
- Archer: In "The Handoff," the group makes the titular handoff at the Korean Bell of Friendship in Los Angeles. This is very likely a reference to The Usual Suspects, as a similar scene happens at what appears to have been the same location.
- Ben 10: Omniverse: In "The Color of Monkey," there's an homage shot of Ben's leg limping and then returning to walk normally.
- Green Eggs and Ham (2019): In "Goat," McWinkle has a big, dramatic "Eureka!" Moment as he stares at the photos of Sam eating green eggs and ham on the diner wall and slowly puts the pieces together.
- Regular Show: The ending of "Win That Prize," where Pops escapes the TV studio into a taxi as the studio employees are too late to catch him, is a parody of Söze's escape.
- Rick and Morty: In "Solaricks," Rick Prime compares his naked, maybe-clone self to Keyser Söze.
- Scaredy Squirrel: The ending of "Stack to School" is one big Homage. After failing multiple times to show that he can be spontaneous, Scaredy passes his spontaneity class by racing to and performing a daring rescue at the Stash n' Hoard. It's only after Scaredy receives his diploma and leaves that his teacher realizes that Scaredy had orchestrated the entire thing (and therefore it wasn't spontaneous at all).
