The episode I Robot, You Jane has a couple of similarities to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The voice of the demon Moloch, when he’s still trapped in the computer, is similar to the voice of the murderous computer Hal in the movie. Additionally, the main student with …

Lorne references the 1982 film 48 Hours, starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in Dead End.

Lorne: “Two enemies, one case, it’s all coming together in a beautiful buddy movie kind of way”
Gunn: “They’re supposed to work together on this?”
Lindsey: “Work with him? Work with him?
Lorne: “Am I the only one …

In In the Dark, Oz says “Yeah, your old buddy Spike dug up Sunnydale looking for it - but he got a fistful of Buffy and left it behind.” This could be reference to the western A Fistful of Dollars.

In the Angel episode A Hole in the World, there is a reference to the Tim Burton movie A Nightmare Before Christmas. Angel looks to a large tree in England which he believes is the entrance to the Deeper Well. Spike states, “either that or Christmas Land”. In the movie, …

The idea of people’s nightmares coming true in the episode Nightmares most likely comes from the A Nightmare on Elm Street movie series, in which villain Freddie Krueger has the ability to hurt people while they sleep.
The demon Der Kindestod in Killed By Death was clearly influenced by the …

The theme song of this 1959 movie was written by Max Steiner and became a huge hit. In Inca Mummy Girl, Oz tells Devon what it takes for a woman to attract him, “Well, it involves a feather boa and a theme to A Summer Place” and in Him, the …

One of the movies playing at the cinema in Amends is Abilene, which was not released until March 13, 1999 - three months after the episode aired. Carey Meyer, who was the production designer for Buffy, was also the designer for Abilene, so the movie’s reference is a little in-joke …

In the episode Grave, Willow says “Willow doesn’t live here anymore”. This is probably a reference to Martin Scorsese’s movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). The movie is about a recently widowed woman who decides to pursue a more glamourous lifestyle.

In Bad Eggs, the offspring of the Mother Bezoar is very similar to the facehugger parasite (designed by swiss artist H R Giger) in the Alien(s) movie series. The Bezoar dissection scene is also a clear nod to a scene in Aliens, in which the android Bishop (Lance Hendriksen) examines …

In Life Serial, Tara says, “One time, when me and Willow were watching…” This may be a nod towards Alyson Hannigan’s character Michelle in American Pie who kept repeating, “And this one time, at band camp…”
In Tough Love, after Willow explains to Buffy that she was teaching Dawn about …

In Xander’s dream in the episode Restless, the following dialogue occurs:
Xander: “You gotta have something. Gotta always be moving forward.”
Buffy: “Like a shark”.
This is a possible reference to Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, in which Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, states: “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. …

Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam war movie made in 1979, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on Conrad’s book The Heart of Darkness. In Restless, Xander brings a video of Apocalypse Now for the Scoobies to watch. Later, Xander dreams of the scene in the movie of the …

Seth Green (Oz) played the son of Austin Powers in the trilogy of movies. In a nod to these films, Oz’s guitar is inscribed ‘Sweet J’ - his best friend in Austin Powers was called Sweet Jay.
A few Buffy actors have appeared in the movies: Cynthia Lamontagne, who played the …

When Andrew is stealing himself to kill a piglet in Never Leave Me, he keeps thinking of Babe, the cute pig from the movie Babe and it’s sequel Pig in the City (”Babe 2: Pig in the City was really underrated”). He later says, “That’ll do, pig”, which the farmer …

Andrew says “Think McFly” in Conversations with Dead People. He’s referring to the movie trilogy Back to the Future, made in the 1980s in which McFly is the last name of the main character, Marty (Michael J. Fox). More specifically, he’s using the phrase Biff (the thug/bully) used to use …