- Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (2001) - The Episode "One Crazy Knight" (EN) / "Overkill Knight! Sir Gallant" (JP) features a character named "Sir Gallant" (EN) / "Kihāno" (JP) who is heavily inspired by Don Quixote. His Japanese named is properly translated to "Quixano", a delusional knight who believes he is a hero depicted in comic books (which he believes are fact). He also ends up fighting an evil sapient windmill named Windwhipper.
- One Piece: Donquixote Doflamingo is a villainous character of the series. His younger brother is named Rocinante, after the horse.
- In Asterix in Spain, Astérix and Obélix meet two men easily identifiable as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the way to Pompaelo — particularly when the former charges with his lance at several windmills.
- Lucky Luke: Calamity Jane gets called a "maritorne" by a Wells Fargo director when she demands to know what happened to her Winchester rifle, taken from the name of a ugly grumpy maid in the novel.
- In Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie quotes a line from the book and addressing Venom as the sidekick, Sancho.
- Star Wars: Its Expanded Universe has a character named Don-Wan Kihotay, a gentleman who went crazy from reading about Jedi knights and sought to become one himself. Subtle, is it not?
- Cranford: In chapter 3, it is mentioned a Don Quixote-looking old man came into a shop for woollen gloves.
- The Crime Of Sylvestre Bonnard, part 2, chapter 4, April 17: There is a cane with the engraved silver head representing Don Quixote charging a windmill while Sancho Panza tries to stop him.
- The Executioner: The novel is Mack Bolan's favorite book and there are quotes from it during his war against The Mafia, given that Bolan sees himself as a Windmill Crusader. He also uses "Mister La Mancha" as a cover name when contacting undercover FBI agent Leo Turrin.
- The Idiot, part 2, chapter 1: Aglaya Ivanovna puts a note between the pages of a Don Quixote book.
- Part 2, chapter 6: Aglaya also compares Nikolayevich Myshkin to Don Quixote.
- In Like No Other Boy, Chris thinks that the windmills he sees as he drives past San Diego would have given Don Quixote a fit.
- The Little Lame Prince And His Travelling Cloak: In chapter 6...
"Suppose I was a knight," [Prince Dolor] said to himself; "then I should be obliged to ride out and see the world."
But he kept all these thoughts to himself, and just sat still, devouring his new books till he had come to the end of them all. It was a repast not unlike the Barmecide's feast which you read of in the Arabian Nights, which consisted of very elegant but empty dishes, or that supper of Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, where, the minute the smoking dishes came on the table, the physician waved his hand and they were all taken away.
But he kept all these thoughts to himself, and just sat still, devouring his new books till he had come to the end of them all. It was a repast not unlike the Barmecide's feast which you read of in the Arabian Nights, which consisted of very elegant but empty dishes, or that supper of Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, where, the minute the smoking dishes came on the table, the physician waved his hand and they were all taken away.
- Les Misérables, volume 5, book 1, chapter 20: The narrator mentions this...
We are few in number, we have a whole army arrayed against us; but we are defending right, the natural law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication is possible, justice and truth, and in case of need, we die like the three hundred Spartans. We do not think of Don Quixote but of Leonidas.
- The Newcomes: Chapter 4 mentions one character used to read Don Quixote.
- Rudin: In chapter 11, Rudin asks Bassistoff about what Don Quixote says to his squire when he is leaving the court of the duchess.
- The Story Of A Bad Boy: In chapter 5, Tom Bailey finds a Don Quixote book.
- Tartarin Of Tarascon: Tartarin get compared to Don Quixote few times by the narrator.
- The Expanse: The pilot episode, "Dulcinea", and Holden's frigate Rocinante are named after Don Quixote's presumptive lover and horse, respectively. Holden's early exposure to Cervantes is explored in the (appropriately-titled) episode 'Windmills' when his mother Elise explains the Freudian Excuse behind his Chronic Hero Syndrome. Then there's the obvious parallels between Miller's obsession with Julie Mao and Don Quixote's obsession with Dulcinea.note
- Mister Rogers' Neighborhood contained a character named Donkey Hodie who lived in a windmill. The character would inspire a spin-off series about his granddaughter.
- The Ministry of Time's Season 2 Episode 3 is centered around Cervantes and Don Quixote: the plot begins when two American time travelers buy the book's first manuscript before it is published because they want to sell it in the future for a fortune (never mind that the manuscript would have no value if the book is never published), and the main characters are tasked with either getting the manuscript back or convincing Cervantes to rewrite it entirely.
- Once Upon a Time: In We Are Both, the evil queen's horse is called "Rocinante".
- Quantum Leap: "To Catch a Falling Star" sees Sam leaping into an understudy for the title role in a musical adaptation of the story. His mission is pretty simple (save the Jerkass lead from falling and breaking his neck), but encountering a crush from his childhood and seeing her getting mixed up with said jerkass cause Sam to take stock of his situation. He bemoans how living bits and pieces of other people's lives and solving their problems essentially makes him Don Quixote. Ultimately, Sam saves the lead and gets to go on in his place, with the closing scenes showing a montage of scenes. Being Resigned to the Call right before the leap, he shares this exchange with Al.Al: You gonna be all right?
Sam: What matter wounds to the body of knight-errants? For each time he falls, he shall rise again and woe to the wicked! Al?
Al: Here, Your Grace.
Sam: My armor, my sword.
Al: More misadventures?
Sam: Adventures, old friend. - Sports Night: In the first season episode "The Head Coach, Dinner and the Morning Mail", Dana compares Jeremy to Don Quixote in his quest to keep Natalie from getting the hate mail she's been getting, and calls him a fool. Jeremy counters that Don Quixote was also a fool, which Dana admits.
- Star Trek: Picard: In the episode Broken Pieces, the eponymous character cites Don Quixote during his briefing with Admiral Clancy, after she admits he was right.
- Picard: And now the windmills have turned out to be giants.
- Man of La Mancha is a play about author Miguel De Cervantes putting on a play with his fellow prisoners that takes most of its elements from his most famous work, Don Quixote.
- Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt: Don Quixote as a Lancer Servant and a young horse-eared woman named Sancho who serves as a Composite Character gestalt of Sancho, Rocinante, Dulcinea, and Altisidora (she can transform into a horse for him to ride on) show up as supporting characters, having arrived in the Traum Singularity to pretend to be Karl the Great as he forms his own kingdom. Unlike most depictions of the character, in this game, he is a short stocky old dwarf. As part of his madness, he is constantly looking for Dulcinea and doesn't notice she is there in Sancho. His famous feat of trying to joust at a windmill is referenced in his main Noble Phantasm "Valiente Asalto Dedicado a la Princesa: Ah! My Dear Princess, I Shall Dedicate My Spear to You!" as it deals more damage to enemies classified as "Giant" in their internal data. His second Noble Phantasm "Triste Suave Alonso Quijano: Ah, This Cruel Yet Kind Reality" creates an Anti-Magic field where nothing supernatural can exist and the world reverts to the mundane one, referencing the end of the book where Quixote was cured of his delusions.
- Don Quixote is the full name of one of the Sinners in Limbus Company; a cheerful young woman who speaks in an antiquated accent and has an incredible aptitude for violence. Instead of being obsessed with knights, she's obsessed with mercenaries called Fixers whom she idealizes as heroes (a thing other characters note to be delusional at best) and her attempts at acting heroically often put the rest of the group in incredible amounts of danger. Her E.G.O is called Blood of Sancho after Don Quixote's companion, and she nicknames her raggedy shoes after Rocinante, Don Quixote's lame horse.
- Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story has the witch of Sasara Minagi, which is named Don Rocinante, a mix of Quixote and his mount. Fittingly, Sasara also wished to become a Knight, though at least she had legitimate threats to face.
- Octopath Traveler: In South Orewell Pass there is a man who is initially named "Mysterious Knight." He is self-appointed and is looking for a good squire to travel with. If the characters bring him such a person, his name is revealed to be Cervantes and he is quite happy to have a companion to travel with and do chivalrous deeds with.
- Rock of Ages: Don Quixote appears as one of your opponents in the second game. He's accurately depicted as a madman who thinks everything is a monster. The references continue as well, as the level you face him in is La Mancha, and it features giants who, of course, turn out to be windmills when approached.
- Transylvania: The Crimson Crown, the second game in the trilogy, contained a riddle which referenced Don Quixote, concern something which "doesn't breathe but needs air" and was made famous by a famous knight. The solution, natch, was "windmill", which acts as a sort of magic word in the game.
- Arknights: The Last Knight, Mortica, who appears as both temporary ally in the Stultifera Navis event and a potential enemy in the Mizuki and Caerula Arbor game mode, is both a reference in name, and in the aforementioned game mode, in the ending after you defeat the Knight, his steed’s name is stated to be… Rocinante.
- SCP Foundation:
- SCP-2985
-5 is a forgery of the painting Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honore Daumier, it possess strokes, colors, and textures indistinguishable from the original to a microscopic level. - SCP-4028 is a metafictional entity taking the form of Alonso Quijano in some copies of Don Quixote. If it gets close to other books, it can alter the plots of the books so that Alonso Quijano appears in them as a Deus ex Machina. As the article progresses, it is revealed Alonso Quijano and Sancho themselves were brought to life, with 4028 being Quijano himself rampaging through each exposed story... or so it seems. It turns out the SCP Foundation got ahold of and hired the actual Quijano, who has spent centuries living with the shame of his actions from the book and changed his name to Pierre Menard. 4028 is therefore in truth Sancho, who wants to rescue Menard from the Foundation against his will. Menard believes he deserves nothing but his post of vanquishing anomalies like him after so long and repeatedly yells at Sancho to go back even as he comes close to dying in his pursuit, but he relents and decides to humor his old squire like in the old times, tilting at a La Mancha wind farm in the real world.
- SCP-2985
- The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda: This is set in a World of Funny Animals, and stars a delusional coyote who tries to be a knight to the exasperation of his panda sidekick. Don Coyote constantly hallucinates that everyday objects are monsters and that ordinary people, usually males, are damsels in distress. However, the duo sometimes had victories over real evildoers.
- Animalia: Iggy pretends to be the titular character in Don Iguana.
- Dora the Explorer: The titular character appeared in two episodes.
- House of Mouse: In the Locksmiths segment where Mickey, Goofy and Donald get stuck inside a room and the door is locked, Goofy brings up his keychain to look for the right key to open the door. One key get called "Don KEY-ote" that looks like a windmill.
- Johnny Bravo: In "Mama's New Boyfriend", Raoul Montoya screams, "Sancho Panza!" as he is falling off a cliff.
- Justice League: In "The Balance", Felix Faust reads the books in Hades' library and lists a few he is fond of, including Don Quixote.
- VeggieTales spoofed this story in the segment "The Asparagus of La Mancha".
