Animation
- One episode of Happy Heroes has the heroes do a School Play greatly resembling Swan Lake in everything but the fact that it's more of a normal play here rather than a ballet.
- Kaleido Star used Swan Lake as the basis for a circus show in the second season. It turns out to be a Lighter and Softer adaptation that has Sora as a bright Odette who lives through all, Leon as a Defrosting Ice King Siegfried who manages to play out the Angelic Maneuvre with Sora, and May as an Anti Villainous Odile who ultimately is saved too.
- Princess Tutu takes music from many classic ballets, including this one. The main hero, instead of a girl who is transformed into a bird, is a bird who transforms into a girl. In addition, Princess Tutu herself resembles Odette while Kraehe resembles Odile, and both are focused on the same fairytale prince, whose true name is later revealed to be Siegfried.
- Virtua Fighter: The English dub changes a line at the Episode 15 after Lilliana kisses Jacky on the cheek and hopes he'll come back to see her dance to Swan Lake.
- Issue 185 of The Simpsons comic book has a story where Lisa is forced to participate in a performance of the ballet (renamed 'Goose Lake' and set in Canada due to copyright issues) along with Ralph.
- In Pretty Cure: Magic of the Rainbow, Hime Shirayuki performs a piece from Swan Lake and perfects the 32 fouettes. Unfortunately, she can't stop twirling, until Regina comes and pushes her over to get her to stop.
- In Bicentennial Man, Andrew mishears Swan Lake as Swine Lake.
- In Billy Elliot the theme appears several times throughout the film and, in the final scene, the titular character plays a cygnet in the ballet.
- Black Swan is about a ballet dancer who gets the lead role in the show, and ends up losing herself in it.
- In Despicable Me, the girls rehearse an excerpt from the ballet.
- The overture plays over the opening titles of the classic horror film Dracula (1931). As an homage, the film Ed Wood uses the overture as the leitmotif of that film's star, Bela Lugosi.
- In Ananda's Fall, a performance of Swan Lake is used to frame Leonardo's relationships with girls he likes.
- Company (Ibuki Yuki) and the subsequent stage musical adaptation by the Takarazuka Revue revolves around the protagonist being assigned to a ballet company staging Swan Lake.
- In Flight of the Swan world-famous ballerina Niura is invited by Arthur Yager, the Governor of Puerto Rico in 1917, to do a private performance of The Dying Swan at La Fortaleza, the governor's residence.
- The Big Leap is about a titular reality show which assembles a group of amateur dancers to put on a performance of Swan Lake in the finale.
- Madness did a ska cover of the ballet's music on their first album.
- The Muppet Show: Guest star Rudolph Nureyev performs a scene from Swine Lake with a large pig ballerina.note
- The stage version of Anastasia has Swan Lake as the ballet all of the main characters go to in the second act, using the dancers actions to mirror what's going on in the real world of the show.
- Ever After High, which revolves around the children of fairy tale characters, includes Duchess Swan, daughter of the Swan Queen.
- ANNO: Mutationem: At Harbor Town, Ann can speak with a gang member who tries to impress her with a pirouette that Ayane recognizes as Dance of the Little Swans.
- The second game in the Dark Parables PC game series presents Odette (only identified as the Swan Lake Princess) as a Posthumous Character.
- Fleurina, a new Mini-Boss in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, is clearly based on Swan Lake, as she is a swan who fights using ballet moves to summon whirlwinds.
- Grimms Notes features Odette and Odile as playable characters, and Rothbart as an antagonist.
- Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale includes a Back Story in which two women play the "Swan Sisters" in a ballet which is clearly inspired by, if not a revamping of, Swan Lake. The one who plays the white swan is good; the one who plays the black swan is evil.
- Loom, a 1990 PC adventure game, used Swan Lake for the entire sound track.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Luigi's Mansion 3: Two of the pool floaties in the Boilerworks are a black swan and a white swan.
- In Paper Mario: The Origami King, the third act of the Big Sho Theater at Shogun Studios that Mario is forced to participate in is a rendition of Swan Lake with mini Paper Macho Shy Guys as ballet dancers. However, when Mario accidentally destroys one of the performers, the other performers try to attack him while a ska remix of Tchaikovsky's score plays.
- In Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, one of the unlockable costumes the player can obtain will have Cereza and Cheshire dress up in outfits inspired by Odette and Rothbart respectively.
- Just Dance: Starting in Just Dance 2023 Edition, the Big Bad of the main story playlists, Night Swan, is explicitly inspired by the Swan Lake ballet, resembling Odile in appearance and being a dancer who failed to become the "ultimate ballerina", with her failure driving her to become a powerful sorceress who wants to take control of the Danceverses and instill order in a world she considers rampant with chaos. 2024 Edition's Dance with the Swan playlist shows her disguising herself as Sara, the story's leading lady, in order to trick Wanderlust into giving her his Discoball, in an obvious parallel to Odile disguising herself as Odette to get Siegfried to proclaim his undying love for her rather than the real Odette. Also featured later in the playlist is a map set to a remix of the ballet's famous Act 2 opener, titled simply "Swan Lake", which depicts Night Swan's victory over the heroes as she brainwashes all but one of them into serving her—the only one left being her Forced into Evil son who had turned against her.
- Roommates has an arc (Such Stuff...) which is best described as Swan Lake meets Inception. As expected it's a massive Mind Screw which gets a lot easier on the brain if you know the basic storyline of this ballet. It also has a villain who introduces herself as "Odile" and a dream sequence that discusses the Revised Ending controversy.
- The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film nominee Boxballet centers around a ballet dancer in Swan Lake.
- In the Tiny Toon Adventures short, "Loon Lake" (part of "Music Day"), Shirley the Loon attends a ballet academy which is doing Swan Lake. Shirley is liked by the teacher, but gets the All of the Other Reindeer treatment from her classmates, who are all snooty swans from Perfecto Prep. Babs gives her a pep talk when she gets discouraged, and when the swans try to sabotage Shirley during the recital, Babs sabotages them right back.
