In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation passed by Congress that apologized to those Japanese Americans who had been interned in government camps during World War II, acknowledging that the action had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." Eventually, more than $1.6 billion in reparations were given to former internees or their heirs.

Although not used as much today, the title Bad Day at Black Rock became a common catch phrase for a worst-case scenario.

MGM executive W.D. Kelly put out publicity about karate's growing popularity in America, and Arthur Godfrey included a demonstration on his morning television show.

James T. Aubrey, a former MGM executive, considered updating the story and remaking Bad Day at Black Rock in the 1990s, but it never came to pass.

Howard Breslin's original story, "Bad Day at Hondo," was used as the basis of another MGM film, Platinum High School (1960), in part an attempt to capitalize on the trend in juvenile delinquent movies. In this B-movie production, Mickey Rooney plays the Spencer Tracy character, this time as a father who goes to an exclusive boarding school located on an island (mirroring the isolation of Black Rock's setting) to investigate the suspicious death of his estranged son. Trapped on the island, he is threatened by the hostile head of the school (Dan Duryea in the Robert Ryan role) and his two henchmen (Richard Jaeckel and Christopher Ryan, standing in for Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine). Terry Moore plays the school secretary and girlfriend of Duryea, who is modeled on Anne Francis's character in Bad Day at Black Rock.

The film had an influence on future movies about lone figures in hostile settings drawing on their considerable––and surprising––combat skills to defeat their enemies, including Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) and the American film Billy Jack (1971). Director John Sturges, in turn, was influenced by Kurosawa, remaking the Japanese director's Seven Samurai (1954) as the Western The Magnificent Seven (1960).

The movie Conspiracy (2008) has a plot very similar to Bad Day at Black Rock, with Val Kilmer playing an ex-GI trying to figure out what happened to his friend, a Latino who has disappeared from his remote Arizona ranch.

In the movie Hard Eight (a.k.a. Sydney, 1996), Philip Baker Hall uses a line said by Spencer Tracy in this picture: "Sturdy sense of responsibility."

A spoof on the title became the name of a 1965 Tom and Jerry cartoon by Chuck Jones, Bad Day at Cat Rock.

A 2007 episode of the TV series Supernatural had the same title as this movie, without any apparent plot or thematic connection.

A 1968 episode of the TV sitcom Petticoat Junction was called "Bad Day at Shady Rest."

The title Bad Day at Black Rock became the name of an episode of the TV action series The A-Team.

Bad Day at Blackrock is a 2008 crime novel by Irish author Kevin Powers, based on the true story about three private school students who attacked and killed another young man outside a Dublin pub.

Since 1990, the town of Lone Pine, California, where Bad Day at Black Rock was filmed, holds an annual film festival showing only movies that were made there. The town, near the foot of Mount Whitney, has been the site of hundreds of productions since the early days of movies, including the Mary Pickford Pollyanna (1920), Von Stroheim's Greed (1924), A Star Is Born (1937), Gunga Din (1939), High Sierra (1941), Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), several Star Trek movies and TV episodes, Iron Man (2008), and of course, hundreds of Westerns. John Sturges made several other films there besides Black Rock, including The Walking Hills (1949), The Law and Jake Wade (1958), The Hallelujah Trail (1965), and Joe Kidd (1972), all of them Westerns.

According to the records of the screening room projector at the White House, Bad Day at Black Rock has become one of the most frequently shown films there.
by Rob Nixon