A 1942 painting by Edward Hopper, showing a couple of people in a diner at night and illustrating their loneliness and despair.
Since it is one of the most recognizable paintings, it's often a case of
Art Imitates Art.
Appearances in Media:
Comics
- In Transmetropolitan Spider and his assistants hang out in a diner based on Hopper's painting. It's called "Hopper's", just to drive it home.
- "Hopper's" diner in Batman: Year One.
- Parodied in the first issue of The Tick.
Film
Live-Action TV
- Dead Like Me homaged the painting in the episode appropriately titled "Nighthawks" (season 1, episode 12, if anyone is interested).
- That '70s Show lampshaded this with Kitty and Red in a diner, in the roles of the woman in the red dress and the suit-clad man sitting next to her.
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in one of the promo posters.
Music
- Tom Waits' album Nighthawks at the Diner is an homage.
- The cover of Orchestral Manoeuvres' album Crush is done is in a Hopper-esque style and shows the corner on which the diner is situated, but from a different angle.
Newspaper Comics
- One of the Pearls Before Swine collections is titled Nighthogs in an obvious reference. The cover is a Shout Out to the painting as well.
- A Peanuts Sunday Strip has this in its first panel, with Woodstock and three other birds. See page 75 of Around the World in 45 Years.
Video Games
- You can buy a decorative painting in The Sims 2 that closely resembles it.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons recreated the scene in one of the eighth-season episodes.
- Invader Zim.
- In the 90s, Cartoon Network aired a commercial
that took place here.
- The Veggie Tales sing-along video "The End of Silliness?" takes place in an ice cream parlor modeled after this painting. The actual recreation of the painting can be seen in the title shot.
