Citing a Hollywood movie in a scientific paper

I'm coming from a humanities background so there may be some differences in actual citation styles but I think the following would be used by most styles.

• Name of movie
• Director
• Distributor
• Year of release
• Medium consulted (DVD, VHS etc)
• Sometimes the main performers(depending on citation format)

In text styles of course depend on whatever citation style you are using. I know for example MLA is (Director, Movie Name) and APA is (Director, Year).

For your example of Highlander in the APA style it would be (Mulcahy, 1986) for a inline citation and your reference entry (assumed DVD) would be - Mulcahy, R. (Director). (1986). Highlander [Motion picture on DVD]. Thorn EMI.

This Link has a pdf showing examples in MLA, APA and Chicago style.

In my research area (databases/distributed systems) projects often have a name taken from something out of pop (or not-so-pop) culture. It seems that if any reference for the allusion is given, it comes in a simple footnote. Your suggestion of "after the 1986 movie of the same name" would likely be perfectly adequate.

On the other hand, if some aspect of the movie actually influenced your work and you discuss it a bit, a full-on citation might be more appropriate.

If it is just the name, I would not cite it. (Unless you really want to or the title may be otherwise strange, ambiguous or misleading (never assume that everyone gets any cultural reference, no matter how popular among your friends).)

I always though that it is up to reader's wit to catch the reference. The same as for project, grant or technique names being contrived acronyms. For example, for FROG (i.e. Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating) I would be surprised by someone citing an article on amphibians.

And from my personal experience: I published an article with title Qubism: self-similar visualization of many-body wavefunctions, but there is no citation of Cubism.