Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 82.5, the girls play the roles of various fairy tale characters, Shizuka is Thumbelina.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights has Thumbelina as one of the many fairlytales spoofed early on when Gian and Suneo tapes several of Nobita's storybooks together. Cue Thumbelina bumping into Isshun-bosshi (another finger-sized character from Japanese fairytales).
- Shrek 2: Tom Thumb and Thumbelina appear together for a brief scene, only to be mistakenly swept up by a man, sweeping the crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel.
- Avengers: Endgame: The Nicknamer Tony refers to Ant-Man as Thumbelina and Stuart Little.
Literature
- The Princess and the Pig: The mix-up occurs because the characters turn to fairytales to explain what’s going on. The king and queen think a bad fairy cursed their daughter like in Sleeping Beauty, and the farming couple think a good fairy turned their piglet into a real girl to reward them with a child like in Thumbelina.
Live Action TV
- Horrible Histories: The Tudor version of Thumbelina ends with with Thumbelina travelling to London in search of her prince. However, because this is Tudor era London, the streets are covered in human excrement, and Thumbelina, being just six inches high, sinks and drown. The final shot is her hat floating atop a pool of poo.
- The Interns: Lobanov tries to tell children the Thumbelina fairytale, and gets immediately reminded by a nurse tasked with watching over him that he is no allowed to just use pre-existing stories, wether children knows them already or not.
Music
- GFRIEND: Sowon means "wish", Sinb means "mystery", Eunha means "galaxy" and Umji means "thumb", yes, "thumb"... but it's based on the fairy tale Thumbelina.
Webcomic
- Cursed Princess Club: Maria and Lorena intend to go as Odette from Swan Lake and Thumbelina, respectively.
