- Bull Durham: Annie likes to read poetry to the ballplayers before she sleeps with them ("Guy will listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay"), and reads Whitman to Nuke. When he asks who Whitman is, she replies, "He sort of pitches for the Cosmic All-Stars."
- Dead Again:Roman: To die is different than what anyone supposes, and luckier.
Gray Baker: Is that a line from your opera?
Roman: (chuckling) It's Walt Whitman. I can't take credit for everything, Mr. Baker. - Dead Poets Society: The works of Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Herrick, Lord Byron, Vachel Lindsay, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Abraham Cowley, Raymond Calvert, Robert Frost, and William Shakespeare are referred to during Keating's class and the meetings of the Dead Poets Society. As a matter of fact Keating misquotes Walt Whitman's 1892 "Song of Myself". The word "rooftops" should have been "roofs". The movie ends with Todd and several of his schoolmates standing on top of their desks saying "O Captain! My Captain!" when Keating leaves. After Robin Williams' death in 2014, many people paid tribute to Williams by posting "O Captain! My Captain!" in homage to this film.
- In Eternals, Dane Whitman recites part of "Song of the Universal" to students at the Natural History Museum while buying time for Sersi, who's late.
- The title of Now, Voyager is from a Walt Whitman poem, which Dr. Jacquith reads and then gives to Charlotte.
- The 1994 adaptation of "Little Women" has Jo and Friedrich quoting "Give Me the Silent Spreading Sun."
- The History Boys references him by quoting the poem that names the aforementioned Now Voyager.
- Walt Whitman gets a Shout-Out in Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California".
- The Devil's Dictionary includes a rather pointed satirical Take That! at Whitman with the "definition":Incompossible, n. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both — as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man. [...]
- In Changes, book twelve of The Dresden Files, Bob quotes Walt Whitman ("Oh, Captain, my captain.") when Harry orders him to lower the apartment's wards.
- In The Gods of Manhattan a number of historical figures, like Frederick Douglass, Babe Ruth, and even Walt Whitman, are revealed to have been upgraded into gods after their deaths.
- In Robert A. Heinlein's "Lost Legacy" a benevolent secret society of people with psychic abilities lives under Mount Shasta. Their membership has included Abraham Lincoln, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. They help the protagonists refine their mental abilities and fight the opposition group that wants to keep humanity ignorant.
- Paper Towns: One of the clues Margo seems to have left for Q are parts of the poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman.
- Take Me Like A Sailor: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is one of two books Evelyn keeps in his sea-chest, the other being Moby-Dick.
Live Action TV
- Breaking Bad:
- In "Sunset" Walt and Gale bond over their shared love of chemistry and their fascination with the written works of Walt Whitman.
- In "Bullet Points" Walt convinces Hank that the "W. W." in Gale's notes refer to Walt Whitman, to cement Hank's suspicion that Gale was Heisenberg.
- Doctor Who: Not only does the Doctor directly reference the Walt Whitman poem "O Captain! My Captain!" in "Deep Breath", there are quite a few repetitions of "O Clara! My Clara" throughout her run, including the minisode that debuted before "The Name of the Doctor", "Flatline", and "Dark Water".
- The Twilight Zone (1959): The title of the episode "I Sing the Body Electric" comes from a Walt Whitman poem, which questions: "What, exactly, constitutes a person?"O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Music
- Lana Del Rey cites Whitman as one of the creators who came before her that inspire and inform her music.
- Silver Jews did a musical rendition of Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!".
- Titus Andronicus: The Monitor contains readings of speeches and writings by Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, among others, performed by fellow indie rock artists such as Craig Finn of The Hold Steady and Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak.
- Ralph Vaughan Williams ' "Dona Nobis Pacem" sets several poems from Leaves of Grass to music, mostly those about the Civil War.
Theater
- Hamilton: The line "America sings for you" in the song "Hamilton" seems a nod to "I Hear America Singing", one of the poems from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
Video Games
- Darkest Dungeon: The Hellion's Barbaric YAWP! skill references a poem by Walt Whitman.
- Injustice 2: Of all people, The Joker is the one that cites Withman in one of his intros vs Captain Cold.Joker: Oh Captain, my Captain!
Captain Cold: Whitman? Seriously?
Joker: A little culture wouldn't kill you. - Trinity includes a bunch of literary references, includes ones to Through the Looking Glass, Moby-Dick, Emily Dickinson, Alexander Pope, Walt Whitman, and Peter Pan.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Marks for Effort" the pledge that Spike has the students recite is based on the "Oh Captain, My Captain" pledge from Dead Poets Society.
- The Simpsons: In "Mother Simpson" Homer discovers that the grave he'd thought belonged to his mother is actually that of Walt Whitman. In real life, Whitman was buried in Camden, New Jersey, which suggests that Springfield is in New Jersey.Homer: (kicking) I! HATE! YOU! WALT! FREAKING! WHITMAN! Leaves of Grass, my ass!
- Steven Universe: Pearl's re-write of the play in "Historical Friction" contains the lines "O Captain, my captain!" and "What light through yonder stage left breaks?/It is the east, and we are the Crystal Gems!"
