Abstract In this paper, we report a non-lithographic strategy to realize surface patterns on polydopamine films. It is based on surface wrinkling, which is induced on polydopamine (PDA) films that are grown on uniaxially pre-strained polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates through self-polymerization of dopamine, followed by the pre-strain release. We investigate the influences of the experimental conditions including polymerization time, prestrain and the dopamine solution concentration on the wrinkling patterns. Furthermore, we take advantage of the reducibility of PDA to fabricate silver nanoparticle-deposited PDA films with surface-wrinkled patterns, which may have potential applications in the related fields.