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Bring MacCready along to the Boston Public Library and he'll drop a line straight out of Ghostbusters. Walking into the ransacked main hall, he mutters something like 'no human being would possibly pile books this way' - a direct riff on Bill Murray's line during the Ghostbusters' library scene. Small moment, but it lands if you know the movie.
Out past Nuka-World in the town of Bradburton, there's a burned-out house with a sword stuck in a pile of glowing embers by the front door. Light it and stimpaks pop out; take the sword and you get three more. It's a straight-up Dark Souls reference, right down to acting like a little healing checkpoint.
When the Prydwen makes its dramatic entrance over the Commonwealth, Nick Valentine will recite 'Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing...' if he's travelling with you - a line lifted straight from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. Good bit of atmosphere for a giant airship showing up out of nowhere.
Down in the tunnels beneath the Castle, you'll find General McGann's body next to a crate of wine and, just across the way, a skeleton sealed inside a bricked-up wall. It's a pretty clear nod to Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, and the wine even matches - it's Amontillado.
Fallout 4 sneaks in a good three Monty Python and the Holy Grail references through your companions. Cait can bring up the Black Knight fight ('what are you gonna do, leak oil all over me?'), Codsworth has his own Black Knight line ('Tis but a scratch!'), and Deacon has a whole bit about taunting turrets that mirrors the French Knight scene. All of it can slip by completely unnoticed if you're not paying attention to companion chatter.
Up in Senior Scribe Neriah's lab on the Prydwen, there's a tray of experimental plants described as growing near rivers. Sound familiar? It's basically Fallout's version of Skyrim's nirnroot, minus the annoying chime. Thankfully you can harvest it without hunting down that sound for twenty minutes.
H.P. Lovecraft fans have plenty to chew on in the Commonwealth. Pickman Gallery and its unsettling artist owner are a nod to Lovecraft's short story Pickman's Model, while the Kingsport Lighthouse borrows its name from Lovecraft's fictional seaside town, seen in stories like The Terrible Old Man. Dunwich Borers piles on even more of the same eldritch dread.
Climb up to the roof of the Mass Fusion Containment Shed and you'll find a raider and a dead synth arranged in a way that mirrors the 'tears in rain' finale of Blade Runner. It's easy to miss since you need to clamber up some pipes and an air conditioning unit to spot it, but it's a genuinely moody little scene once you're up there.
Diamond City's noodle vendor Takahashi has exactly one line of dialogue, and it's lifted word for word, broken grammar included, from Blade Runner's noodle bar scene. Blink and you'll miss it, but it's one of several Blade Runner nods scattered around the game.
