Nighthawks (painting)



A 1942 painting by Edward Hopper, showing some people in a diner (that just happens to be on a street corner of a city) late at night, illustrating their loneliness and despair.

Since it is one of the most recognizable paintings, it's often a case of Art Imitates Art. So famous is this exact setup that most people throughout the industrialized world will immediately recognize the scene, whether or not they know the name of the original painting.

Compare Pietà Plagiarism and The Scream.

Comic Books

 * In Transmetropolitan Spider and his assistants hang out in a diner based on Hopper's painting. It's called "Hopper's", just to drive it home.
 * "Hopper's" diner in Batman: Year One, featuring Lt. Gordon and Essin eating in a diner after their shift ends.
 * Parodied in the first issue of The Tick.

Film

 * In Glengarry Glen Ross, two characters visit a similar-looking diner.
 * Hard Candy.
 * In the sequel to Night at the Museum, it is one of the paintings that come to life.
 * According to The Other Wiki, this painting inspired the "future noir" look of Blade Runner.
 * Dario Argento recreated the set in his film Deep Red.
 * Recreated as a set for a Film Within a Film in Wim Wenders' movie The End of Violence
 * Hard Candy features a scene on a "Nighthawks Diner", where a character purchases a T-shirt with Nighthawks printed on it.
 * In Heavy Traffic the painting is briefly used as a background for a scene.

Live-Action TV

 * Dead Like Me homaged the painting in the episode appropriately titled "Nighthawks" (season 1, episode 12, if anyone is interested).
 * That '70s Show lampshaded this with Kitty and Red in a diner, in the roles of the woman in the red dress and the suit-clad man sitting next to her. Kitty remarks on how everything feels so familiar.
 * CSI, in one of the promo posters.

Music

 * Tom Waits' album Nighthawks at the Diner is an homage.
 * The cover of Orchestral Manoeuvres' album Crush is done is in a Hopper-esque style and shows the corner on which the diner is situated, but from a different angle.

Newspaper Comics

 * One of the Pearls Before Swine collections is titled Nighthogs in an obvious reference. The cover is a Shout-Out to the painting as well.
 * A Peanuts Sunday Strip has this in its first panel, with Woodstock and three other birds. See page 75 of Around the World in 45 Years.
 * De Kiekeboes: Fanny and Inspecteur Sapperdeboere sat in this restaurant in the album "Blond en Blau W".

Video Games

 * You can buy a decorative painting in The Sims 2 that closely resembles it.

Western Animation

 * The Simpsons has parodied the shot several times, most notably in the episode "Old Money", with Granpa, and in "Homer vs. the 18th Amendment", featuring Officers Eddie and Lou.
 * Invader Zim.
 * In the 90s, Cartoon Network aired a commercial that took place here.
 * The Veggie Tales sing-along video "The End of Silliness?" takes place in an ice cream parlor modeled after this painting. The actual recreation of the painting can be seen in the title shot.
 * The Animated Adaptation of Batman: Year One also contains this shot.
 * There's an old Cartoon Network bumper with Johnny Bravo in a bar drowning his sorrows after getting dumped by Velma Dinkley. The bumper begins and ends on this shot.