The Defiant Ones was remade for television in 1986 with Robert Urich as Joker and Carl Weathers as Cullen.

Black Mama, White Mama (1972), an exploitation ripoff of The Defiant Ones with a gender twist, had Pam Grier and Margaret Markov chained to each other while escaping a Philippino prison camp.

In Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Will Smith played a drifter/con artist who pretends to be Sidney Poitier's son and makes references to his "father's" role as the black prisoner in The Defiant Ones.

A cartoon spoof, De Fightin' Ones (1961), had Sylvester the cat chained to a bulldog as they escape a city animal pound.

The song Poitier sings at the beginning and end of the movie is "Long Gone (From Bowlin' Green)," written by blues legend William C. Handy.