When Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binoche) and Denis Poncet (Frank Feys) are arguing about the editing process, Denis says, "we won an Oscar without your help!" Sophie's response indicates that she thinks that mentioning the Oscar win is pretentious and under-impressive. Denis Poncet and Jean-Xavier de Lestrade did in fact win a best feature documentary Oscar for their film Un coupable idéal (known in English as Murder on a Sunday Morning). Juliette Binoche won an Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for the 1996 movie The English Patient, which also starred Colin Firth (who plays Michael Peterson in The Staircase).
In a given moment, Michael says to his daughter "My house, my mail", which echoes a similar moment from another Colin Firth movie in The King's Speech (2010) when Lionel says to him "My castle, my rules".
During the packing scene the brothers are listening to "Vindicated" which was popular with the original Spider-Man movies. The brother Clayton (Dane DeHaan) was Harry in "The Amazing Spiderman".