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Asian Animation
- In the Simple Samosa episode "Dadi Ke Saath", Vada is briefly seen holding an electric guitar that has Nirvana's "X-eyed smiley face" logo on it. The same guitar also appears in "Banana Fontana", where someone from the crowd gives it to Banana Fontana (actually Samosa disguised as his made-up celebrity) to play for a performance.
Films — Live-Action
- "Something in the Way" is a recurring Leitmotif throughout The Batman (2022).
- Jerry Maguire: While he's waiting in his hotel room the night before the NFL draft, Cush starts playing (on guitar) and singing "Something in the Way".
- In Under the Silver Lake, Sam is a fan of Nirvana and has a poster of them signed by Frances Cobain.
- The Wrestler has a scene where Randy and Cassidy gleefully remember 80s rock "then that Cobain pussy had to come around and ruin it all."
Literature
- About a Boy: The title of the novel is a reference to "About a Girl", and part of the plot involves Marcus becoming friends with Ellie, who gets him into the band, and who has a meltdown when she hears about Kurt Cobain's suicide (the film adaptation drops this entirely).
- Joe Hill's novel Heart-Shaped Box takes its title from the Nirvana song.
- In Love Letters to the Dead, Laurel has a special appreciation for Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, as she and her sister May used to bond over them, the song "Heart-Shaped Box" in particular.
- In Rogue, Kiara edits a video of Chad doing a double 360 on his BMX bike to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
- In Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard it's apparently a Chase family inside joke that Magnus looks like Kurt Cobain.
- In The State of Grace, Grace's mum watches a Nirvana video on TV.
Live-Action TV
- In Jessica Jones (2015), a flashback to the title character's teenage years shows she had a Nirvana poster in her room. And once the title character reunites with her mother, she says Jessica only listened to depressing rock, and Jessica's reply that Nirvana isn't depressing earns the retort that the singer killed himself.
- In the Lost episode "Through the Looking Glass", Jack is seen listening to "Scentless Apprentice" in his car.
- In the Millennium (1996) episode "Luminary" the missing teen Frank is looking for has a Kurt Cobain poster on his bedroom wall.
- My So-Called Life: In the episode "Halloween", when Rayanne sees the Rolling Stone issue memorializing Kurt Cobain, she becomes sad and says she still can't think about what happened.
Music
- blink-182's "Adam's Song" features a homage to "Come As You Are" in its lyrics:I took my time, I hurried up / The choice was mine, I didn't think enough
- The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who already wrote a Grief Song regarding Kurt's death in "Tearjerker", dress like Nirvana in the MTV Unplugged during a part of the video for "Dani California".
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's Off the Deep End has its art direction parodying Nevermind, and lead single "Smells Like Nirvana" is an affectionate parody of the band to the tune of "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
Video Games
- Bunny Invasion Easter Special:
- One of Jim's purchasable skins in the extras (named "Jim Cobain") has him dressed in a similar fashion to Kurt Cobain within the band, complete with a wig based on his hairstyle.
- An instrumental version of "Come As You Are" also plays during one of the game's cutscenes.
- Some of the enemies in Hobo wear short-sleeved hoodies with a smiley face reminiscent to the one commonly featured alongside the Nirvana logo.
- In Infinite Craft, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a possible crafting recipe.
- The first Monster Rancher allows the player to unlock the rare monster Karaoke, a singing baby, by scanning a CD copy of Nevermind with "Endless, Nameless" in the PlayStation. CDs without the track simply unlock Stoner, a common monster.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Sonia Nevermind is a walking homage to the band. Sonia's home country is named after Krist Novoselic, and her last name is the title of Nevermind. According to supplementary material, she attended "In Utero School" before becoming a student at Hope's Peak Academy.
