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
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, ', 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 GarcÃÂa 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 Ã
Âwiatów)
- 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
- StanisÃ
Âaw 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 13ý 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 PaviÃÂ'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, '
- Ronald Wright, A Scientific Romance
- Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia
- Sing-Shong, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint
- Paul Ableman, âÂÂâÂÂThe Twilight of the VilpâÂÂâ (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, KobÃÂ¥j-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
Stage plays
Pre-20th century plays
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 1884âÂÂ1915
- Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, The Mighty Boosh (1998 stage show)
- Federico GarcÃÂa 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
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 8ý
- 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 '
- Roman Polanski's What?
- 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 ', ' and '
- 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
Comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and manga
- Aka Akasaka, '
- 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 Ã
Âkubo, Fire Force
- Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine
- Ryukishi07, Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry
- Claudio Sanchez, ', 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, '
- Against Gravity, Rec Room
- Blooming Buds Studio, Calendula
- Daniel Mullins, Pony Island, The Hex, Inscryption
- Davey Wreden, The Stanley Parable; The Beginner's Guide
- Draw Me A Pixel,
- Future Cat LLC, OneShot
- Goichi Suda, Flower, Sun, and Rain; No More Heroes
- Hello Games, No Man's Sky
- Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid
- Ice-Pick Lodge, Pathologic
- Ivan "Mad" Zanotti, IMSCARED
- Josh Millard, Ennuigi
- Kazutaka Kodaka, Spike Chunsoft, ,
- Keiichiro Toyama, Silent Hill
- Masato Hiruta, Shuusaku, Kisaku
- Mystman12, Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered
- NetEase Games, Marvel Rivals character Deadpool addresses the Fourth wall multiple times.
- Question, The Magic Circle
- Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2
- Ryukishi07, Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry
- SCA-JI, Wonderful Everyday
- Shigesato Itoi, EarthBound; Mother 3
- Silicon Knights, Eternal Darkness
- Squanch Games, High On Life
- THQ, Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row 4
- Team Salvato, Doki Doki Literature Club!
- Toby Fox, Undertale; Deltarune
- Ubisoft Montreal, '
- Vio Shimokura, YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story
Web videos
Multiple authors
Artists' books
References