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Many critics have cited Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep, Arthur Penn’s Night Moves, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye as visible influence on Inherent Vice. All of those films are generally unique examples of film noir taking place around Los Angeles. Anderson said the success of The Big Sleep despite its confusing plot allowed him to be comfortable with directing a narrative that could be equally confounding as well. However, it’s worth noting that the narrative in Inherent Vice is far more diffuse and languid.

The cynical attitude of the film occasionally recalls Chinatown, particularly in the way land ownership figures in the plot. Much of the time, it seems more reflective of the post-Watergate mood of Night Moves, often described as burn-out from the failed promise of ‘60s idealism.

Cheech & Chong’s marijuana farces from the ‘70s were actually an enormous influence on the film, with Anderson singling out Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke as an inspiration. Many critics have also drawn comparisons to The Big Lebowski’s shaggy dog narrative, particularly with the film narration that was Anderson’s own creation, but many more argue that Inherent Vice found most of its inspiration in another drug-hazed film, The Long Goodbye, which shares the same setting of early ‘70s Los Angeles.