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Will (view source)

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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' has [[McGuffin|Marvin Acme's will]], which was hidden. ([[Hidden in Plain Sight|In plain sight]], as a matter of fact.)
* ''Greedy'' is pretty much entirely about the second and third paragraphs under ''Writing the Will'', above.
* The Ultimate Gift uses a will at the beginning of the film to set up the story. The protagonist has to perform the convoluted tasks set forth in the will in order to inherit billions.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Charles Dickens (Creator)|Charles Dickens]]'s ''Bleak House'' revolves around a long-running legal case over a will. How long-running? Entire generations of descendants of the original litigants have been born, lived, and died ''before the novel begins''. We never learn what the dispute originally was, by the time of the novel nobody ''remembers'' what it was, and the ultimate conclusion is that legal costs have consumed the entire estate, so nobody gets anything.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' - when Bilbo leaves the Shire, his last letter has all the characteristics of a will, including pointed comments about his relatives.
* Several [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] plots involve wills:
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** Whether Harry's parents had wills is unknown, but he does inherit both of their entire estates as well -- assuming the Wizarding world works the same way the real world does, it's reasonable that any belongings which were not destroyed or left in the care of someone else with instructions about its disposal were sold and the money from the sale added to their account at Gringott's.
* ''[[The Westing Game]]'' involves a man leaving his will in the form of a convoluted game, the winner of which will become his heir.
* In [[LML. M. Montgomery]]'s ''[[A Tangled Web]]'' eccentric Aunt Becky willed that the name of the heir of a priceless heirloom will only be disclosed a year after her death. Because the will dropped a few hints that a unknown judge would be selecting the heir, the family members spent the rest of the year trying their best to live up to what Aunt Becky would have wanted in an attempt to win the heirloom.
* In the [[Sherlock Holmes]] story ''The Case of the Norwich Builder'', a will is the means of framing a young man for murder. The writer of the will leaves his entire estate to the young man, then fakes his death, leaving the young man the only suspect.
* Quite a few of Rex Stout's ''[[Nero Wolfe]]'' novellas and novels revolve around wills; real, fake, hidden, disputed, and lost. Among them are ''The Red Box'', ''Where There's A Will'', ''The Rubber Band'', ''When A Man Murders'' and ''Window For Death''.
* Rex Stout also uses a will in ''[[Red Threads]]'' an non-Wolfe novel.
* In ''The Gates of Sleep'' (from [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''Elemental Masters'' series), Marina's parents specifically name their friends as Marina's guardians should anything happen to them. Unfortunately, the will is stolen and destroyed by her {{spoiler|Satanist}} aunt, letting that aunt grab control of Marina's estate and person.
* One of [[Kim Newman]]'s horror stories, "The Cold Stark House", has a particularly nasty version of the jerkass dying guy trope: it turns out in the end that the dying guy enjoys making his relations dance for the inheritance so much that he's done a [[Deal Withwith the Devil]] to make himself and them immortal, and they've now been scheming and back-stabbing for ''centuries'', with no end in sight.
* In [[George Eliot]]'s ''[[Middlemarch]],'' Casaubon tries to control Dorothea Brooke from beyond the grave by means of a particularly nasty codicil, which {{spoiler|strips her of her inheritance if she marries Will Ladislaw.}}
** There's some comic foreshadowing of Casaubon's manipulativeness in Mr. Featherstone's will.
* ''[[Keys to Thethe Kingdom]]'' involves the Will of the Architect of Creation, which can bestow great power.
** It is also ''[[Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids|sentient]]''.
* Several [[Agatha Christie (Creator)|Agatha Christie]] stories revolved around hidden wills, and a series of cryptic clues that force the potential heirs to enlist the help of one of her detective characters.
* A major plot point in ''[[Washington Square]]'': Catherine Sloper already receives $10,000 yearly from her mother's estate, and by default she is going at get an additional $30,000 after her father's death. Dr. Sloper already considers Catherine an [[Inadequate Inheritor]], and makes it very clear to her that if she marries Morris Townsend, he will change his will to completely disinherit her and donate his money to various organizations. {{spoiler|He ends up keeping his word, and Catherine gets nothing from him. Even worse, Catherine never marries, making it a wasted struggle.}}
* Parodied in The Will of Don Quixote, by Hungarian poet Domokos Szilágyi. It starts with the traditional opening formula of a will, but the rest is actually a list of nouns arranged in alphabetic order, with little to no relation to each other.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* A prank on the hidden camera show ''[[Scare Tactics (TV series)|Scare Tactics]]'' involved the victim being told by a man she was hired to take care of that he'd been brought back to life by his greedy heirs while they were searching for his will. The man asked the victim what her name was, then scribbled it down onto his will, claiming to leave his entire fortune to her. The greedy heirs find out--[[Hilarity Ensues|Hilarity (and terror for the victim) Ensued]].
* In ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' just before the crew is set to go into a very dangerous mission we find Dr. Phlox doing a very long and lengthy will to his extended family. He explains that he enjoys the thought of his friends and family getting something pleasurable and remembering him after he's gone.
* In an episode of ''[[Married... Withwith Children]]'', Al Bundy's Uncle Stymie, the only male Bundy to be a success in life (Al credits this to the fact Stymie was the only one who never married), left his $500,000 estate to the first male Bundy to have a legitimate son named after him. Considering that the lawyer who read the will would later marry a male Bundy and give birth to Stymie Junior to get the money, Al and the other Bundys who didn't get the money even though [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|could have challenged the will under claims of undue influence]].
* In ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' two-part episode "10 Million Dollar Sheriff", Rosco Coltrane believed he'd inherit ten million dollars from his uncle but it was later revealed that will was inaccurate and Rosco only inherited ten dollars. {{spoiler|Obviously, he only learned the truth after accumulating debts he relied on the ten-million-dollar inheritance to pay.}}
* ''[[M*A*S*H (TV)|Mash]]'': During a posting to an aid station at the front Hawkeye makes out a will. One of the soldiers who works there says he's seen lots of guys do that.
** An earlier episode has Frank Burns, delirious with a high fever, thinking he's going to die and dictating his will to Father Mulcahy. Among other things, he leaves "all profits from my prescription kickbacks" to his children and his clothes to Margaret Houlihan.
 
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* In the [[Infocom]] game Deadline, one major scheduled event is the reading of the will, at noon. {{spoiler|Following a character will lead you toward the real, updated will.}}
* In the [[Expanded Universe|supplemental material]] for ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'', it is revealed that the driving force behind the [[Excuse Plot]] is the [http://www.teamfortress.com/pumpkinpatch/the_last_will_and_testament_of_Zepheniah_Mann/ last will and testament of Zepheniah Mann], arms manufacturer and proud owner of a continent worth of useless land and half the diseases known to man, the latter two caused by his layabout, brain defective sons, [[Meaningful Name|Blutarch and Redmond]]. He leaves his arms company and personal estate to his personal tracker and nurse, respectively, and his sons get the crap land and a litany of insults.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* At least one [[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]] cartoon has Tom inheriting a great deal of money thanks to an eccentric owner, on the condition that he forfeits it all if he harms any living creature, even a mouse. Jerry then proceeds to be a total [[Jerkass]] throughout the cartoon, taking advantage of Tom and waving the telegram in his face to protect himself. Eventually Tom has enough and says "Gee, I'm giving up a million dollars...'''''BUT I'M HAPPY!!'''''" and finally giving Jerry the beating he deserves.
** In another [[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]] cartoon, Jerry wrote a will leaving Tom a custard pie. Eager to claim that inheritance, Tom happily yelled: "Lemme have it!" and the pie was thrown at his face.
** In yet another one, Tom was so sure Spike would maul him to death he wrote a will leaving everything to charity.
* In Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Pound of the Baskervilles", Lord Baskerville left his mansion to his second son, who must find the will to prove it, before the first son finds and destroys it.
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