Douglas Sirk's film The Tarnished Angels makes reference to My Ántonia as the last book read 12 years earlier by heroine LaVerne, played by Dorothy Malone. She discovers the book in the apartment of the alcoholic reporter Burke Devlin, played by Rock Hudson. After LaVerne's husband, Roger, (played by Robert Stack), dies in an airplane racing accident, Burke Devlin sends LaVerne and her son, Jack, on a plane to Chicago, which will connect them to their next flight to Nebraska to start a new life. In the final scene, as LaVerne boards her plane, Burke hands LaVerne the book My Ántonia.
Emmylou Harris' 2000 album Red Dirt Girl features the wistful song "My Ántonia", as a duet with Dave Matthews. Harris wrote the song from Jim's perspective as he reflects on his long lost love.
The French songwriter and singer Dominique A wrote a song inspired by the novel, called "Antonia" (from the LP Auguri, 2001).
In Richard Powers' 2006 novel The Echo Maker, the character Mark Schluter reads My Ántonia on the recommendation of his nurse, who notes that it is "[A] very sexy story. ... About a young Nebraska country boy who has the hots for an older woman" (page 240).
In Anton Shammas' 1986 novel Arabesques, the autobiographical character of Anton reads My Ántonia on the plane to a writers' workshop in Iowa. It is the first novel he ever read, and he expects Iowa to have the same grass "the color of wine stains" that Cather describes of Nebraska.[15]
Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware brews a continually-hopped imperial pilsner named My Ántonia.[16]
In the introduction of his New Year's Day opinion piece entitled "2019: The Year of the Wolves" in The New York Times, David Brooks evoked Pavel's deathbed story[Notes 1] from My Ántonia[17][Notes 2] of how he and Peter[Notes 3] had been banished from their village in the Ukraine for throwing a bride and groom to the wolves to save their own lives when the six sledges of the inebriated bridal party were attacked by about 30 wolves.[18]: 56–60 [19][Notes 4] Pavel, who was the friend of the groom, had unsuccessfully attempted to convince the groom to save himself too by sacrificing his bride, but the groom fought to protect her.[18]: 56–60 When the two sole survivors returned along to the village, they became pariahs, cast out of their own village and everywhere they went. "Pavel's own mother would not look at him. They went away to strange towns, but when people learned where they came from, they were always asked if they knew the two men who had fed the bride to the wolves. Wherever they went, the story followed them."[18]: 56–60 This is how they came to settle in Black Hawk on the Nebraska prairie.[17] Brooks compares 2019 to that Russian winter in the 19th century where it was known that wolves have been attacking humans, and a vulnerable wedding party that is a "bit drunk" is being led by two men who are willing to do anything to survive, including throwing their friend and his wife to the wolves.[17][19]: 55–6 He foresees the upcoming year as one "where good people lay low and where wolves are left free to prey on the weak".[17] In his deathbed confession, Pavel explained, "...the ones who do the sacrificing, who throwaway the baggage — bodies, loyalties, allegiances — are the ones who survive."[18]: 56–60
In Barbara Kingsolver's 2018 novel Unsheltered, a main character is named Willa, after Willa Cather. A paragraph of My Ántonia is quoted in Kingsolver's novel in the context of a dead woman wanting it read at her funeral.[20]
In Bret Stephens' opinion piece in The New York Times, July 19, 2019, titled ”The Perfect Antidote to Trump – Willa Cather knew what made America great”[21] Stephens wrote that Willa Cather's My Ántonia is “a book for our times—and the perfect antidote to our President.” “My Ántonia becomes an education in what it means to be American.” We need to recall “what we’re really about, starting by rereading My Ántonia.”
