This is a partial list of works that use metafictional ideas. Metafiction is intentional allusion or reference to a work's fictional nature. It is commonly used for humorous or parodic effect, and has appeared in a wide range of mediums, including writing, film, theatre, and video gaming.

Novels, novellas and short stories

Pre-20th century works

  • Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus
  • The Cloud Dream of the Nine, Kim Man-jung
  • Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xueqin
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
  • James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
  • Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
  • Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

Modern and contemporary works

  • Peter Ackroyd, English Music
  • Rabih Alameddine, I, the Divine
  • Brian Aldiss, Report on Probability A
  • Felipe Alfau, Locos: A Comedy of Gestures
  • Martin Amis, Money, London Fields, Time's Arrow, The Information
  • Isaac Asimov, Murder at the ABA
  • Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments
  • Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy: City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986)
  • Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine
  • John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
  • Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
  • John Barth, Chimera; Coming Soon!!!; The Floating Opera; The Sot-Weed Factor; Lost in the Funhouse
  • Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
  • Samuel Beckett, Watt
  • Thomas Bernhard, Wittgenstein's Nephew
  • Laurent Binet, HHhH
  • Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives, 2666
  • Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths"; "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"; "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"
  • George Bowering, Burning Water
  • Steven Brust and collaborators, Five Hundred Years After
  • William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
  • Michel Butor, Second Thoughts
  • A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance
  • James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest
  • Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Tres tristes tigres
  • Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler
  • Peter Carey, Illywhacker
  • Jonathan Carroll, The Land of Laughs
  • J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man
  • Douglas Cooper, Amnesia, Delirium
  • Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch
  • Douglas Coupland, jPod
  • John Crowley, Little, Big, Novelty, Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, The Solitudes
  • Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
  • Lydia Davis, The End of the Story
  • Peter David, Young Justice, Sir Apropos of Nothing
  • Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection; Dhalgren
  • Philip K. Dick, VALIS; The Man in the High Castle
  • Hernan Diaz, Trust (novel)
  • Joan Didion, Democracy; The Last Thing He Wanted
  • Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum; The Island of the Day Before; The Name of the Rose
  • Jennifer Egan, The Keep
  • Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  • Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park; Imperial Bedrooms; The Shards
  • Harlan Ellison, "The Deathbird"
  • Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
  • Steve Erickson, Arc d'X; The Sea Came in at Midnight
  • Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams; Crack'd Pot Trail
  • Raymond Federman, Twofold Vibration; Smiles on Washington Square; Take It Or Leave It
  • Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair; Lost in a Good Book; The Well of Lost Plots; Something Rotten; The Big Over Easy; The Fourth Bear
  • Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
  • Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
  • John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Magus
  • Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
  • Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • John Gardner, October Light; Grendel
  • William H. Gass, The Tunnel
  • André Gide, The Counterfeiters
  • William Goldman, The Princess Bride
  • Alasdair Gray, Lanark
  • Robert Grudin, Book: A Novel
  • Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
  • Steven Hall; The Raw Shark Texts
  • Larry Heinemann, Paco's Story
  • Robert A. Heinlein, The Number of the Beast; Glory Road
  • Douglas Hofstadter, dialogues in Gödel, Escher, Bach
  • Marek Huberath, Nest of Worlds (Gniazdo światów)
  • Rhys Hughes, Nowhere Near Milk Wood; The Postmodern Mariner; The Less Lonely Planet
  • B. S. Johnson, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry
  • James Joyce, Ulysses; Finnegans Wake
  • Stephen King, The Dark Tower series; Misery; The Dark Half; Bag of Bones
  • Michael Muhammad Knight, Osama Van Halen
  • Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting; The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  • Stanisław Lem, A Perfect Vacuum; Imaginary Magnitude; Provocation, One Human Minute
  • Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
  • Joan Lindsay, Through Darkest Pondelayo
  • Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
  • David Lodge, Therapy; Nice Work
  • Ki Longfellow, Houdini Heart
  • Dimitris Lyacos, With the People from the Bridge
  • Steve Lyons, Doctor Who; Virgin New Adventures:Conundrum
  • Barry N. Malzberg, Galaxies; Herovit's World
  • Yann Martel, Life of Pi
  • Ian McEwan, Atonement
  • Shaun Micallef, Smithereens; Preincarnate; The President's Desk
  • David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
  • Spike Milligan, Puckoon
  • Walter Moers, The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear; Ensel und Kretel; The City of Dreaming Books
  • Michael Moorcock, The Second Ether sequence (Blood, Fabulous Harbours, and The War Amongst The Angels)
  • Ethan Mordden, The Buddies Cycle
  • Toni Morrison, Jazz
  • John Muckle, London Brakes
  • Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
  • Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift; Pale Fire; Look at the Harlequins!; Lolita
  • Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds
  • Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato
  • Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family
  • Juan Carlos Onetti, El Pozo
  • Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club; Diary; Haunted
  • Grace Paley, A Conversation with my Father
  • Kenneth Patchen, The Journal of Albion Moonlight
  • Milorad Pavić's novels
  • Nisio Isin, Monogatari Series; Zaregoto Series; Shin Honkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka; etc
  • Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas
  • Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper
  • Terry Pratchett, several of the Discworld; The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
  • Robert Rankin's novels
  • Alain Robbe-Grillet, La Jalousie; La maison de rendez-vous
  • Philip Roth, Operation Shylock
  • Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories; Midnight's Children; Shalimar the Clown
  • Douglas Rushkoff, Exit Strategy
  • José Saramago, Blindness; The Cave; The Double
  • Howard Schoenfeld, Built Up Logically
  • Idries Shah, The Book of the Book
  • Robert Sheckley, Options
  • Dan Sleigh, Islands
  • José Carlos Somoza, The Athenian Murders
  • Gilbert Sorrentino, Mulligan Stew
  • Muriel Spark, The Comforters
  • Peter Straub, In the Night Room
  • Jonathan Stroud, The Bartimaeus Trilogy
  • José Baroja, The curious case of the shadow that died as a memory
  • Janet Tashjian, The Gospel According to Larry; Vote for Larry
  • J. R. R. Tolkien, "Leaf by Niggle"
  • Roderick Townley, The Great Good Thing
  • Miguel de Unamuno, Niebla
  • Aritha Van Herk, Restlessness
  • Jeff VanderMeer, City of Saints and Madmen
  • Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge
  • Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions; Slaughterhouse-Five; Timequake
  • David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
  • H. G. Wells, Tono-Bungay
  • Colin Wilson, The Personality Surgeon
  • Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
  • Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry The Powerbook; Gut Symmetries
  • Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story"
  • Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography
  • Ronald Wright, A Scientific Romance
  • Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia
  • Sing-Shong, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint
  • Paul Ableman, ‘’The Twilight of the Vilp’’ (1969)

Children's books and young-adult fiction

  • Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon
  • John Dougherty, the Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series
  • Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
  • Cornelia Funke, Inkheart series
  • Mordicai Gerstein, A Book
  • Anders Jacobsson and Sören Olsson, Kobåj-Kurt (within the Bert Diaries)
  • Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock
  • Arthur Ransome, Peter Duck, Missee Lee
  • Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), A Series of Unfortunate Events (13-book series)
  • Mo Willems, We Are in a Book! (Elephant and Piggie series)
  • Jon Stone, The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover
  • Emily Gravett, Wolves, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
  • Chris Wooding, Poison
  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
  • Roald Dahl, The Witches

Animated short films

  • Chuck Jones, Duck Amuck (1953) and Rabbit Rampage (1955).
  • Don Hertzfeldt, Rejected (2000) and World of Tomorrow (2015 - 2020)

Stage plays

Pre-20th century plays

  • Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle
  • Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • Manuel Tamayo y Baus, Un drama nuevo

Modern theater works

  • Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Endgame
  • Jackie Sibblies Drury, Fairview; We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915
  • Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, The Mighty Boosh (1998 stage show)
  • Federico García Lorca, Play Without a Title / Untitled Play (1935)
  • Joseph Heller, We Bombed in New Haven
  • Arthur L. Kopit, End of the World with Symposium to Follow
  • Ira Levin, Deathtrap
  • Daniel MacIvor, Never Swim Alone and This Is a Play
  • Steve Martin, Picasso at the Lapin Agile
  • Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author
  • Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
  • Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade)
  • Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth
  • Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife

Musicals

  • Passing Strange
  • Pippin

Films

  • Keith Allen and Peter Richardson's Comic Strip film Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown
  • Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, Deconstructing Harry and Midnight in Paris
  • Robert Altman's The Player
  • Troy Duffy's The Boondock Saints
  • Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill's 22 Jump Street
  • Steve Bendelack's The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
  • Ingmar Bergman's Persona, The Magician, Prison, and The Passion of Anna
  • Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World
  • Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs
  • Dean Parisot's Galaxy Quest
  • John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness
  • Wes Craven's Scream film series and Wes Craven's New Nightmare
  • Wyllis Cooper's Quiet, Please scripts
  • Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt
  • David Cronenberg's Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and eXistenZ
  • Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion
  • Federico Fellini's 8½
  • David Fincher's Fight Club
  • Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction
  • Bob Fosse's All That Jazz
  • Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer's Epic Movie
  • Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, Weekend, Alphaville and King Lear
  • Peter Greenaway's The Baby of Mâcon
  • Kirt Gunn's Lovely by Surprise
  • Michael Haneke's Funny Games
  • Jim Henson's Muppets franchise <small>(The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, The Muppets, and Muppets Most Wanted)</small>
  • Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation and Being John Malkovich
  • Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa
  • Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.
  • David Lynch's Inland Empire
  • John McTiernan's Last Action Hero
  • Coleman Miller's Uso Justo
  • John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch
  • Mike Myers and Michael McCullers's Austin Powers
  • Andrew Niccol's The Truman Show
  • Tim Miller's Deadpool, David Leitch's Deadpool 2 and Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Christopher Nolan's Inception
  • Trey Parker's South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
  • Roman Polanski's What?
  • Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes
  • Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman's American Splendor
  • Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
  • Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run
  • Lana Wachowski's The Matrix Resurrections
  • David Wain and Michael Showalter's They Came Together
  • Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, and Wes Craven's Scary Movie
  • Quentin Dupieux's Rubber
  • Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods
  • James Franco's Interior. Leather Bar.
  • Michael Winterbottom's A Cock and Bull Story, a film adaptation of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy
  • Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Hot Fuzz
  • Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody
  • Lars von Trier's Epidemic
  • Gaspar Noe's Lux Aeterna
  • Saw Teong Hin's You Mean the World to Me
  • Neill Blomkamp's District 9
  • Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
  • Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain
  • Shawn Levy's Free Guy
  • Robert Rodriguez's Shorts
  • Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's Everything Everywhere All At Once
  • Greta Gerwig's Barbie
  • Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths
  • Walt Disney Animation Studios's The Emperor's New Groove
  • Warner Bros. Animation's The Lego Movie
  • Richard Kelly's Southland Tales
  • Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered
  • Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid
  • Jonas Mekas's As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
  • Damon Packard's Fatal Pulse
  • Leos Carax's Holy Motors and Annette
  • Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg and The Green Fog
  • Mike Cheslik's Hundreds of Beavers
  • Matt Johnson's The Dirties
  • Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such A Beautiful Day
  • H. C. Potter's Hellzapoppin

Television shows

  • 30 Rock
  • The Amazing World of Gumball
  • American Dad!
  • Animaniacs
  • Arrested Development
  • The Basil Brush Show
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold
  • The Big O
  • Black Mirror
  • Boston Legal
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Central Park
  • Chowder
  • The Cleveland Show
  • Community
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
  • Doctor Who
  • Drawn Together
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy
  • Entourage
  • The Eric Andre Show
  • Family Guy
  • Fleabag
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
  • Futurama
  • Girl Meets World
  • Girls5eva
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
  • High Fidelity
  • Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
  • House of Mouse
  • How I Met Your Father
  • How I Met Your Mother
  • It's Garry Shandling's Show
  • Kid Cosmic
  • Lady Dynamite
  • Looney Tunes
  • Loki
  • The Mighty Boosh
  • Moonlighting
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus
  • The Muppet Show
  • The Muppets
  • Murder, She Wrote
  • Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy
  • On Cinema at the Cinema
  • The Office (U.S.)
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
  • Phineas and Ferb
  • The Powerpuff Girls
  • Princess Tutu
  • Re:Creators
  • Red Dwarf: Back to Earth
  • Rick and Morty
  • Robot Chicken
  • Saturday Morning All Star Hits!
  • Scrubs
  • Sean's Show
  • The Simpsons
  • Smiling Friends
  • South Park
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast
  • SpongeBob SquarePants
  • Supernatural
  • Teen Titans Go!
  • Teletubbies
  • Ultimate Spider-Man
  • Velma
  • WandaVision
  • Wander Over Yonder

Comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and manga

  • Aka Akasaka, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
  • Berke Breathed, Bloom County, Outland and Opus
  • Rich Burlew, The Order of the Stick
  • John Byrne's run on The Sensational She-Hulk and Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk
  • Mike Carey, The Unwritten, featuring characters coming from, and journeying into, fictional worlds
  • Paul Cornell, IDW 2013 Doctor Who Special: The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who
  • Jim Davis, Garfield
  • Andrew Hussie, Homestuck
  • Nisio Isin and Akira Akatsuki, Medaka Box
  • Tatsuya Ishida, Sinfest
  • Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston, Black Hammer
  • Alan Moore, Promethea, Supreme and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
  • Grant Morrison, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo, The Filth, Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis and The Invisibles
  • Atsushi Ōkubo, Fire Force
  • Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine
  • Ryukishi07, Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry
  • Claudio Sanchez, Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1, first half of the fourth chapter of The Amory Wars presents a metafictional aspect to the story
  • Dave Sim, chapters "Minds" and "Guys" from his graphic novel Cerebus
  • Dan Slott, Spider-Verse
  • Kristofer Straub, Checkerboard Nightmare
  • Garry Trudeau, Doonesbury
  • Adam Warren, Empowered
  • Mason Williams, 1/0
  • Sui Ishida, Tokyo Ghoul, Choujin X

Interactive media and video games

  • AIHASTO, MiSide
  • Ackk Studios, YIIK: A Postmodern RPG
  • Against Gravity, Rec Room
  • Blooming Buds Studio, Calendula
  • Daniel Mullins, Pony Island,
  • Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Vio Shimokura, YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story

Web videos

  • Alantutorial by Alan Resnick
  • Angry Video Game Nerd and Nostalgia Critic
  • Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
  • Petscop
  • Skies Forever Blue by Toby Fox and Itoki Hana
  • The Show About the Show by Caveh Zahedi
  • The Amazing Digital Circus produced by Glitch Productions and created by Gooseworx

Multiple authors

  • Penny Arcade frequently features metafiction, particularly their fantasy setting Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga.
  • The DC Comics characters Ambush Bug and The Joker are aware that they are in a comic book.
  • The Marvel Comics characters She-Hulk, Howard the Duck, Deadpool, Uatu the Watcher, Purple Man, Spider-Ham, Gwenpool, and others are all aware they are in a comic book.
  • The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama is fiction with a metafictional history.
  • Triangle and Robert is heavily metafictional.

Artists' books

  • Space Opera: The Artist's Book by Michael J. Weller

References