Responsive free standing films of gold nanoparticles were fabricated by a new approach based on the programmable DNA-directed self-assembly and the layer-by-layer (LbL) thin film fabrication technique. [Nano Lett., 2013, 13, 4449, Nat. Nanotech., 2017, 12, 41]. We further combined the strategy with plasmonic photopatterning to fabricate nanoparticle films with vertical and lateral heterogeneity, which showed complex morphing actions instructed by the lateral and vertical patterns inscribed in the film as well as the information carried in DNA [Adv. Mater., 2022].