History Main / FloatingWater

* The Mon Calamari opera/dance/thing in ''Franchise/StarWars Episode III: Film/RevengeOfTheSith''.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongJungleBeat'' had floating bodies of water floating in air that you had to swim through. Later, VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 re-used the same idea, adding games characteristic gravity tricks.

* The forest level in ''VideoGame/TheLegendaryStarfy'' had numerous examples.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 7'' has a mini-game where the four players are placed in a giant floating bubble of water, and must punch the others out of the bubble. (And yes, despite what logic might otherwise dictate, being punched out the top of the bubble counts as a knockout.)

* Through use of the sponge block, it is possible to produce this effect in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''.
** To a lesser extent, it can be done with signs and several other similar items. They allow you to pass through, but block the water.

** [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 The sequel]] has some interesting 2D platforming involving water passageways above, below, and next to platforms with gravity pointing any which way.

** Wonder Flower can make water ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosWonder'' float.

* A single-course setpiece obstacle in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'': moving circles of water mixed in with the platforms. Yes, you can swim in them, and you can fall out of them to your death.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has the Loopdeeloop and Loopdeeswoop Galaxies, which are Manta Ray race tracks made of floating water. The latter even has the water go uphill and in a vertical loop!

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a variant. While not technically floating per se, Bowser's castle does have a swimming pool which is enclosed on only three sides, meaning the water is violating gravity in not dribbling out and into the void. It also plays it straight with floating blocks of water in some subareas.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Happens in ''Anime/PokemonRangerAndTheTempleOfTheSea''. During a performance by a [[MakingASplash water]] and [[MindOverMatter psychic]] Pokémon show, giant spheres of water are levitated, with Pokémon and people jumping into them and swimming around.
** Speaking of ''Pokémon'', [[OlympusMons Manaphy]] is living water.
* The ''Noiseman'' anime short has this.

* ''Fanfic/TangledUpInBlues'': Seafoam demonstrates her telekinesis by "dividing the water in the fountain into cubes that float through the air."

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* Justified in the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}''. Water really does that at that scale.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* The water tentacle from ''Film/TheAbyss''.
* Creator/RichardKelly is ''obsessed'' with this image. Watch any movie he directed, from ''Film/DonnieDarko'' to ''Film/SouthlandTales'' to ''Film/TheBox.''
* In ''Film/TheLastAirbender'', [[spoiler: TheHeavy Admiral Zhao]] is killed in a curb stomp battle when three unnamed waterbenders simply trap him in a ball of water and suspend him until he drowns.
* Played for literal {{tearjerker}} effect in ''Film/{{Gravity}}''. We realise the heroine is crying when her tears start floating in bubbles through the microgravity of the Soyuz capsule. Note this is for RuleOfDrama as in real life Stone's tears would not have formed free-floating tear spheres. The liquid's surface tension would make them cling to her skin or eyelashes.
* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides'': Water creeps up walls and drips ''up'' off leaves near the Fountain of Youth.

* Justified in one of Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/DominicFlandry'' novels, although the zero-g environment was artificial in this case.
* In ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', when one of the Krullian hydrophobes falls onto a pond, his innate revulsion for water manifests magically and pushes it away from his body, leaving him suspended over a trough in the liquid's surface.
* In the Literature/{{Spellsinger}} series, the river Sloomaz-ayor-le-Weentli is a "double" river, in which one river flows at ground level and another underground, with an air-filled space between them (AWizardDidIt).

* Literature/TheBible:
** God separated the waters of the Red Sea, opening up a dry path on the seabed for the Israelites to pass on.
** Less impressively, but still something, the waters of the Jordan, ''twice''[[note]]once in Joshua 3 and once in 2 Kings 2[[/note]].
* In one of the ''Simon Black'' novels by Ivan Southall, the Australian AcePilot travels into outer space and finds himself with the problem of how to take a bath in zero gravity. Eventually he slips into the huge glob of floating water and wriggles around until he's clean.
* ''Literature/OldKingdom'': The AfterlifeAntechamber of Death takes the form of a [[PlacidPlaneOfAnkleDeepWater shallow river]] divided into nine Precincts. The Fifth Gate is a "waterclimb" that flies upward into the Sixth Precinct, requiring magic to traverse safely.

* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E9ThirtyDays Thirty Days]]" has a planet made entirely out of water, the reason being that it is held together by a massive force-field generator at its core. Meanwhile, the people living on the planet believe that their gods had given it to them as a gift (note: they live underwater in buildings).

* Centaur Man's level in ''VideoGame/MegaMan6'' has a room where reverse gravity water is moving up and down on the ceiling. To get across without the Jet Adaptor, you have to time your jumps to have the gravity-reducing water increase your jump distance.
* Fan-made ''VideoGame/SuperMario63'' has water that can cling onto walls. They even lampshaded it in one particular level.
* The second and third main games in the ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' series have floating tubes and spheres of water.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' has the Loopdeeloop and Loopdeeswoop Galaxies, which are Manta Ray race tracks made of floating water. The latter even has the water go uphill and in a vertical loop!
** [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 The sequel]] has some interesting 2D platforming involving water passageways above, below, and next to platforms with gravity pointing any which way.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a variant. While not technically floating per se, Bowser's castle does have a swimming pool which is enclosed on only three sides, meaning the water is violating gravity in not dribbling out and into the void. It also plays it straight with floating blocks of water in some subareas.

* The forest level in ''VideoGame/TheLegendaryStarfy'' had numerous examples.
* A single-course setpiece obstacle in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'': moving circles of water mixed in with the platforms. Yes, you can swim in them, and you can fall out of them to your death.

* Ditto one part of ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'' set in [[EldritchLocation Oneiros]].
* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 7'' has a mini-game where the four players are placed in a giant floating bubble of water, and must punch the others out of the bubble. (And yes, despite what logic might otherwise dictate, being punched out the top of the bubble counts as a knockout.)
* In the trailer for ''VideoGame/BioShock2'', a Big Sister uses telekinesis to make a big shield of water, for no reason other than to look awesome.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgB7mgdjUhA This]] is a water rift from...well, ''VideoGame/{{Rift}}''.
* One of the outdoor levels in ''VideoGame/SecretAgent'' has a block of water just floating in mid-air ([[SuperDrowningSkills that kills you instantly on touch]].) There's no explanation for this. Apparently it's a level designer's error.
* ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams'' has a stage with floating bodies of water: the appropriately named Splash Garden.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Something}} Something Else]]'':
** Rainy Clouds, which makes sense as clouds are filled with water.
** The Secret Exit route in Cat Beach is based around this particular gimmick. One false move and Luigi plummets to his death.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', the capital of Malkuth is called Grand Chokmah, the Floating Capital, because most of it extends out over the surface of the nearby ocean. In addition to being filled with truly awe-inspiring fountains and waterfalls, the bar that you can enter has globes of floating water on display, suspended in midair as decor. Since Malkuth is the country known for its practitioners of [[MagicAIsMagicA fonic artes]], it's safe to say AWizardDidIt to show off.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': Can be accomplished with bubble blocks, which are impenetrable by liquids but otherwise intangible, allowing water (or honey, or lava) to be effectively suspended in mid-air and dived into from the sides or bottom.
* ''VideoGame/LegoTheIncredibles'': Dory travels on land in a bubble of water.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' episode "Space Madness", Captain Hoark is in the bath and Space Cadet Stimpy turns off the gravity in order to calm him down. Cue this trope with the bath water taking the same rectangular shape as the bathtub.

* Aqueduct (a.k.a. Water Wizard), a villain in the MarvelUniverse, has the psychokinetic ability to control and shape all forms of liquid (including oil) for virtually any effect, such as rainstorms, floods, tidal waves, water slides, and mobile animated water creatures.

* ''Film/Tomorrowland'': During Casey Newton's brief exploration of the vision of Tomorrowland the "T" pin gives her, she sees a set of swimming pools, suspended in discs positioned one above the other. Swimmers proceed to dive from one pool to the other, practicing different flips as they descend between the levels.

* ''Manga/SoulHunter'', one of the Four Saints has a water-manipulating Paopei which he uses to summon huge amounts of sea water in any way he wants, including forming spherical blobs which cling to people's heads or forming a giant dome of sticky water to keep his opponents from fleeing.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a variant. While not technically floating per se, Bowser's castle does have a swimming pool which is enclosed on only three sides, meaning the water is violating gravity in not dribbling out and into the void.

* Justified in the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}''. Water really does that at that scale.

-->-- '''A [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Toad]]''', ''VideoGame/SuperMario63''

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':

* An episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has a planet made entirely out of water, the reason for that being it was held together by a massive force-field generator at its core. The people living on the planet meanwhile believed their gods had given it to them as a gift (note: they lived underwater in buildings).
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Smith and Jones," the gravity-transport beam the Judoon use to transport the hospital from the earth to the moon causes water to condense out of the air around the hospital and fall upward, creating the illusion that it's "raining backward."

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' has a variant. While not technically floating per se, Bowser's castle does have a swimming pool which is enclosed on only three sides, meaning the water is violating gravity in not dribbling out and into the void. In some ways, its even more [[UncannyValley uncanny looking]] than the usual variants of the trope, since it almost at first glance looks normal, until the FridgeLogic kicks in.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-791 SCP-791]] is an inexplicably orb-shaped mass of water.

->''"Aren't you surprised by how we got water to blatantly ignore gravity?" ''[Beat]'' "What?!?! You think it is easy altering the laws of physics, like gravity?!?!? How 'bout ''you'' try?!?"''
-->-- '''A [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Toad]]''' [[LampshadeHanging lampshading this trope]] in ''VideoGame/SuperMario63''

-->-- '''A Random [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Toad]] [[LampshadeHanging lampshading this trope]] in VideoGame/SuperMario63'''

* During Creator/DCComics' CrisisCrossover ''ComicBook/{{Invasion}}'', the SpaceOpera hero ComicBook/AdamStrange was visited by a Thanagarian delegation who vocally admired the "water sculpture" in the hero's house as it made various shapes in the air above the "fountain" it filled. Then they tried to kill him. Turns out the "water sculpture" was actually a trained alien "watchdog" made of liquid and the fountain was its equivalent to a doghouse. (It also turns out that Thanagarians take a long time to drown, since their lungs are larger than those of a human.)

* Music/TearsForFears: In the "[[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10otut Closest Thing to Heaven]]" music video, the play has an upside-down ocean situated above the clouds in the sky.

* With the magic of speaker pulses and video frame rates set in time with each other, someone has actually filmed a stream of still floating droplets, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=_PkgQQqpH2M in this video]].

There can be any number of explanations that can be made by the people using this trope, but it really all boils down to the RuleOfCool. Remember however, it can still be in a glass container of some sort, just expect it to be crystal clear and barely noticeable. Pretty much guaranteed when someone is MakingASplash.

* Blitzball matches in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' take place in floating water spheres. See the picture above. Absolutely no attempt is made to explain how they do it (although it probably involves pyreflies, which are used to explain how the players can spend the entire match of what equates to underwater soccer without needing to come up for air).