Princeton University in popular culture

Literature

• F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary debut, This Side of Paradise, is a loosely autobiographical story of his years at Princeton. A Princeton Alumni Weekly on Princeton fiction called it the "ur novel of Princeton life."
• In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the character Robert Cohn attended Princeton.
• Geoffrey Wolff's The Final Club is a coming-of-age book about Nathaniel Auerbach Clay, a fictional member of the Princeton Class of 1960. The Final Club is written as homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby.
• Princeton plays a large part in the second half of Stephen Fry's Making History, in which the protagonist, Michael Young, attends Princeton.
• Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist is partly set at Princeton and the characters Changez and Erica are fictional members of the Princeton Class of 2001..
• The book The Rule of Four is set on Princeton's campus and the campus of neighboring Princeton Theological Seminary.
• In Her Shoes, a novel by Jennifer Weiner '91: Rose Feller is a Princeton grad. Her younger sister Maggie camps out in a Princeton library.
• Watchmen, a graphic novel created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins: Dr. Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan, born 1929, attended Princeton University from 1948–1958 and graduated with a Ph.D. in atomic physics.
• Admission, a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, is largely set at Princeton and features as its protagonist 38-year-old Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University. Korelitz worked as a part-time reader for Princeton's Office of Admission in 2006 and 2007 and is married to Princeton professor Paul Muldoon.
• Humboldt's Gift features Von Humboldt Fleisher who briefly achieves the position of "Chair in Modern Literature"

  Film

• In You Can't Buy Everything, Donny Bell attends there.
• The beginning of the 1944 film Wilson is set there.
• In Meet Me in St. Louis, Lon Smith Jr. attends there.
• In A Beautiful Mind, the Academy Award–winning film about the famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, the depiction of Nash's initial days at Princeton were filmed on campus. Although the film is a fictionalized biography of his real life, Nash did receive his doctorate from Princeton and was a Senior Research Mathematician at the university's mathematics department till his death in 2015.
• In There's Something About Mary, it is repeatedly referenced that Mary Jenson went to Princeton.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley features Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, who pretends to have gone to Princeton, and at one point in the film can be seen wearing a crested Princeton jacket.
• In The Magnificent Ambersons, George Amberson Minafer attends there.
• The movie I.Q., which stars Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins with Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein, takes place in Princeton. The scene in which Tim Robbins' character gives a lecture was filmed in Room 302 of the Palmer Physics Laboratory, which is part of Frist Campus Center.
• In the 1999 film Cruel Intentions, Sebastian manipulates his therapist's daughter, Tara Reid's character Marci Greenbaum. It is mentioned that she is going to Princeton, and therefore, too good for him.
• In the film Risky Business, Tom Cruise portrays a high school student whose father wishes him to attend Princeton. Joel Goodeson, Cruise's character, is interviewed by a Princeton alum.
• Spanglish, a film featuring comedian Adam Sandler, is presented as an essay on a fictional Princeton application. The film was released in 2004.
• In the movie A Cinderella Story, a major part of the storyline revolves around Chad Michael Murray's and Hilary Duff's characters both aiming to attend Princeton to study writing.
• Across the Universes Jude, played by Jim Sturgess, comes to America to find his lost father at the university. He thinks his father is a professor but discovers that he is in fact a janitor. While Jude is searching on campus, he encounters Max, played by Joe Anderson, an actual Princeton student.
• Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale's character in the film Batman Begins, attends Princeton as an undergraduate. Though he informs butler Alfred Pennyworth that he likes the university "just fine", he drops out and flees to China to begin his training with Henri Ducard.
• In Aaron Sorkin's 2017 film Molly's Game, Princeton University, is cited by Douglas Downey, portrayed by Chris O'Dowd, as an emblematic institution of great privilege.
• In the Coen Brothers' 2008 film Burn After Reading, John Malkovich plays CIA analyst and Princeton class of 1973 graduate Osborne Cox.
• In the Scott Derrickson 2008 remake of the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, Jennifer Connelly plays the role of Dr. Helen Benson, a professor of astrobiology at Princeton University.
• In the film ', the main character, Princess Mia, is referred to as a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
• In Robot and Frank, Frank gets a robot caregiver from his son, due to the onset of memory loss. Toward the end of the movie, he asks his son about Princeton even though the son has long since graduated.
• In Stay Alive, a 2006 ghost story/computer-gaming cross-genre movie, the lead female character, Abigail, tells her friends that she got into Princeton, but later admits she was lying.
• In The Happening, a 2008 horror movie by M. Night Shyamalan, one of the scenes takes place on Princeton's campus.
• Scenes from the 2009 film were filmed at several locations on campus in July and August 2008 as main protagonist Sam Witwicky attends his freshman year at college.
• In the movie Toy Story 3 it can be inferred, based on the "Go Tigers" pennant in his room and his Princeton shield screensaver that Andy is going to Princeton.
• In the film The Fugitive, during the St. Patrick's Day Parade sequence, Harrison Ford is shown giving his jacket to a man wearing a Princeton sweatshirt.
• The university is one of the destinations of Harold and Kumar, the main characters of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Though the characters visit campus locations filled with undergraduate students, the film was actually filmed in the graduate dormitories.
• The main character Evelyn Salt in the 2010 film Salt graduated from Princeton University.
• The film Admission is based on the story of a fictional Princeton admissions officer and is also partially filmed at Princeton University.
• In the 1979 film Last Embrace'', Ellie Fabian is a doctoral student at Princeton who is secretly murdering descendants of the Zwi Migdal as revenge for the organization having enslaved her grandmother.

  Television

• On Numb3rs, mathematical genius Charlie Eppes attended Princeton at age 13 for his undergraduate.
• On Doogie Howser, M.D., fictional doctor Douglas Howser graduated from Princeton at age 10.
• In Weeds, Silas Botwin, the son of the main character, dates Megan, who is accepted to Princeton.
• The characters of House, M.D. work at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. The outside façade of the fictional hospital are represented by exterior shots of the university's Frist Campus Center. Guyot Hall, home to the EEB and Geosciences departments, is also often visible in the outdoors shots, and so are Fine Hall and the Lewis Library. Four years after the show's first season, fact followed fiction as ground broke on the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro.
• In the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Carlton Banks' dream school is Princeton University and he eventually attends the university as the series ends.
• In Family Ties, "Young Republican" Alex P. Keaton spends the first two seasons of the series preparing to attend Princeton. While visiting for an on-campus interview, Mallory has an emotional crisis. Ultimately, Alex chooses to tend to her rather than complete his interview, thus destroying any possibility of attending Princeton.
• In The Beverly Hillbillies, Mrs. Drysdale's son Sonny mentions attending Princeton, and Harvard and Princeton pennants hang on his wall.
• In the primetime drama The West Wing, Sam Seaborn attended Princeton.
• In the NBC comedy 30 Rock, Jack Donaghy attended Princeton University as an undergraduate. In Season 4, Episode 4, this is used for comedic effect when Jack says, "I don't have bedbugs, Kenneth, I went to Princeton!"
• In Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf said that the holy trinity among Ivy Leagues Schools' are Harvard, Princeton and Yale. She later referred to Princeton as a "trade school."
• In What I Like About You, Henry Gibson attended Princeton.
• In the season 4 finale of Desperate Housewives, Julie Mayer, Susan's daughter, is accepted to Princeton and prepares to leave home.
• In Mad Men, Season 3 Episode 3 "My Old Kentucky Home," we learn that Paul Kinsey is a member of Princeton's class of 1955 and sang with the Princeton Tigertones.
• In 30 Rock, Season 4 Episode 3 "Stone Mountain," Tracy sees Kenneth carrying a box of Halloween decorations and says "Orange and Black decorations? Is this Halloween, or Princeton Parents' Weekend? I don't know whether to be scared... or proud of my cousin?" In several episodes, character Jack Donaghy also mentions attending the university.
• On Two and a Half Men, Rose says that she attended Princeton for undergrad and graduated in two years while at the movies with Alan.
• On The Cosby Show, Sondra, the eldest daughter, attended Princeton.
• In Gilmore Girls, one of the three schools that Rory Gilmore got accepted to is Princeton, but later chose to go to Yale instead, and Paris Geller's first boyfriend Jamie is a Princeton student.
• In the show Everwood, Amy attends Princeton after deferring her first semester.
• In the show The Big Bang Theory, Leonard Hofstadter attended Princeton, and Amy Farrah Fowler spent a summer fellowship there.
• In the show “South Park”, Season 1 Episode 2 “Volcano”, Mayor McDaniels mentions to her assistant that she went to Princeton
• In the show Boardwalk Empire, Jimmy Darmody attended Princeton before serving in the military during World War I.
• In the ABC drama Scandal, Olivia Pope attended Princeton University, graduating with a degree in Politics.
• In another ABC drama, Grey's Anatomy, surgical resident Jo Wilson grew up in foster care, lived in her car as a teenager, and was able to become her high school's valedictorian and eventually attend Princeton with the help of a supportive teacher.
• In The Mindy Project, Mindy attended Princeton. Fun fact: Mindy Kaling actually graduated from Dartmouth College.
• In the FX series Atlanta, Earnest "Earn" Marks is a Princeton dropout, and struggles to make it in the Atlanta music scene as a manager for his cousin, rapper Paper Boi.
• In "The Simpsons" season 8 episode 16 episode "Brother From Another Series" it is revealed that Cecil Terwiliger, the younger brother of the infamous "Sideshow Bob", went to Princeton. Bob referred to it as a clown college.
• In "Thirtysomething", there was a main character Hope who wore a Princeton sweatshirt and indications she attended.

  Other

• The University of Northern New Jersey, a fake university created by the United States Department of Homeland Security to investigate student visa fraud used a logo very similar to Princeton's seal