Cast Away / Referenced By

A Doraemon short have Nobita actually succeeding in running away from home, all the way to a deserted island where he's lost for 10 years. After his first month or so, Nobita begins to miss Doraemon, so he instead carves Doraemon's face on a coconut and repeatedly speaks to it. There's even a scene where Doraemon the coconut gets dropped into the sea and floats away as Nobita struggles (and fails) to reclaim it, just like Wilson the volleyball.
In a Filler episode for The Rising of the Shield Hero, a flashback shows that Kizuna made herself a Wilson-like Companion Cube out of wood during her imprisonment in the Infinite Labyrinth.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, Itadori is spending time at his new friend Junpei's house, and Junpei's mom asks Itadori to do something funny with a plate and two pieces of celery. Itadori decides to reenact the scene where Chuck loses Wilson, causing Junpei to spit out his drink from laughter.

Film — Animated

In the first Madagascar movie, Alex has made a Companion Cube out of a basketball named Spaulding.

In Experimental Film, Lois remembers a former student who didn't understand the difference between star and director, and thought Cast Away was a film by, rather than with, Tom Hanks.
In The Society of Sylphs, Eddie imagines living on a secluded tropical island by himself. He thinks, "I would be like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway, surviving on fish and coconuts, talking to myself."

The Last Man on Earth: Phil laughs at Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away for talking to a volleyball. Sometime later, Phil has gathered about a couple dozen of balls with faces drawn on them.

Music

Owl City's 2023 album Coco Moon has the single Kelly Time, which is based entirely on Cast Away. The title references Chuck's pocket watch with Kelly's photograph.

Green Hell: A ball with a painted face can be found near a beach, which the player can choose to name "William".
Killing Floor 2: The "ZED Landing" map takes place on a tropical island with a crashed "ZedEx" cargo plane on the beach. The map collectibles are volleyballs, with the face of Tripwire Interactive's then-vice president Alan Wilson painted on them.
Kingdom of Loathing: One pet your character can acquire is a volleyball with a bloody handprint face on it.

The JonTron episode "Japanese Shoot-Em-Ups" opens with Jon comparing Japan to this film:
The Japanese make some crazy shit. And well, what can you expect? They've lived isolated on an island for like, what, thousands of years? Your brain's bound to make up some weird stuff. This one time I saw Tom Hanks was livin' on an island, he became best friends with a ball! A ball! And he was only there for, like, a couple of years! Eh- Can you imagine how many tentacles this ball woulda had comin' out if you give him a couple more decades on that island?
Joueur du Grenier's Let's Play of Stranded Deep has the player character narrating his actions to a rock with a smiley face painted on it.

DuckTales (2017): In "Moonvasion!" Donald Duck is found stranded on an island with a watermelon that looks a lot like a certain mouse.
Family Guy:
- A cutaway from "A Fish Out of Water" is a parody of the film, with Peter hysterically crying to Wilson on a raft.
  "Wilson": My name is Voit, dumbass!
- In "The Perfect Castaway", Peter and his friends are stranded on an island, and the scene where Peter tries to catch fish with a spear directly spoofs the film.
- A cutaway from "Bigfat" features Chuck about to have Wilson perform oral sex on him.
Robot Chicken did one sketch where we see what happened to Wilson after he floated away. He gets "rescued" by a fisherman, makes it back to land, goes on the run from the cops, and even falls in love, until he finally makes it back to Chuck, who is talking with his ex-wife. Wilson then smacks himself in the ex's face. Then when the ex threatens to call the cops, Wilson talks for the first time and tells Chuck "No witnesses." The sketch ends with Chuck walking towards his ex, getting ready to strangle her.

Referenced By / Cast Away