Jennifer Baichwal directed the documentary Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (1999), featuring Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg, among others. Bowles discusses his relationships with some of the twentieth century's most celebrated and notorious writers including Gertrude Stein, Jack Kerouac, and Truman Capote.

Bowles's novel The Sheltering Sky was adapted into a film in 1990. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the film stars Debra Winger and John Malkovich.

Bowles reads "Allal" and other stories from his home in Morocco in The Voices of Paul Bowles (1989), an audiocassette published by the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. The cassette also includes early music compositions and field recordings of traditional Moroccan music by Bowles.