History Film / Saltburn

* TheBeautifulElite: The Catton family consists of the beautiful Lady Elspeth and her equally beautiful children, Felix and Venetia. Head of the family, Sir James Catton, whilst not quite beautiful, is certainly dashing in his own way, and as a [[BlueBlood baronet]], he owns a vast inherited country house, featuring multiple rooms filled with priceless furniture and artworks as well as a fleet of staff. The family live a glamorously louche existence, culminating in a birthday party thrown for Oliver of such megalomaniacal proportions that it wouldn’t look out lot of place on the party pages of society bible, ''Tatler''.

* BourgeoisBohemian: Elspeth claims that she was a lesbian for a period of time and has no problems with homosexuality. She is also a former model and clams to have hung out with a variety of Britpop bands, to the point that people thought Pulp's "Common People" is about her. Her son Felix is not nearly the class-focused snob as his other blueblood friends, defending Oliver for being a "scholarship kid."

** When Percy Shelley's doppleganger is being discussed over breakfast, [[spoiler:a person with Felix's clothes and build passes by the window. We're then told that Shelley died shortly after his doppleganger was seen.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: Most of the story is set in the year 2006-2007. This is even true after a TimeSkip: [[spoiler:Sir James explicitly dies in 2022, and it's suggested that it's no later than 2023 at the latest at the finale.]] The film premiered in the fall of 2023.
* AllThereInTheManual: In the film, it's not clear if Duncan is still around at Saltburn when [[spoiler:Oliver kills the now-disabled Elspeth]] and what (if any) repercussions there will be. The script makes it clear that [[spoiler:Duncan is still there, hovering over Oliver, and suggests that Oliver will at least try to get rid of him, whether through sinister means or otherwise.]]

** Felix is a more ambiguous case. He's fixated on Oliver for a while...and makes a point of telling Elspeth that Oliver is handsome. He's also very angry about Oliver trying to hook up with Venetia, and only placated when Oliver claims Venetia came onto ''him''. This may just be a combination of MySisterIsOffLimits and petty jealousy, though.

* BelligerentSexualTension: Oliver and Farleigh have a mutual dislike for one another from the very beginning. Not that this prevents them from hooking up later on, [[spoiler: although it's eventually revealed that Oliver only seduced Farleigh as a ploy to steal his phone and fabricate the evidence that would lead to Farleigh being kicked out of Saltburn for theft.]]

* CastFullOfRichPeople: Everyone, excluding presumably Duncan (the butler) and Oliver himself, is from a wealthy, aristocratic background. [[spoiler:Even Oliver, while not ''rich'', is comfortably middle-class and is lying about the poverty in which he grew up.]]

* HiddenDisdainReveal: [[spoiler: Oliver's final opinion on Felix? "I hated him. I hated all of you."]]

* RichBitch: Lady Daphne also seems to qualify, although she's only in two scenes. She [[AwfulWeddedLife openly hates her husband]], doesn't understand why Oliver thinks it's "nice" that she has children, and tells him that the purpose of school is that she doesn't have to see them or deal with them.

* TokenBlackFriend:
** Farleigh is the only black member of the family. He is also ButNotTooBlack - as the mixed-race son of Sir James's sister and an unknown father.
** Lady Daphne is also the only black member of the aristocracy that we see (excluding Farleigh, who is at best an awkward example).

** A naked Oliver cavorting through the now-deserted Saltburn. Creator/BarryKeoghan is in very good shape, but it's hard to be titillated after [[spoiler:knowing he killed the entire Catton family and got away with it.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: Most of the story is set in the year 2006-2007. This is even true after a TimeSkip: [[spoiler:Sir James explicitly dies in 2020, and it's suggested that it's no later than 2021 at the latest at the finale.]] The film premiered in the fall of 2023.

** Elspeth implies that she went to Central St. Martin's, which is a very prestigious art school, even if it's not quite {{Oxbridge}}.

* FiveSecondForeshadowing: [[spoiler: When we see Oliver's childhood house, it's a well-maintained two story home in a nice-looking neighborhood rather than the run-down rattrap he implied to Felix. As soon as we knock on the door, we discover that he was lying about growing up in wretched poverty.]]

* IvyLeagueForEveryone: The UK-specific equivalent. Felix, Oliver, and Farleigh are all new students at [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Oxford]], where Farleigh's mother apparently attended in the 1990s (alongside now-Oxford don, Professor Ware).

** [[spoiler:Many, many people warn Oliver that Felix's affections are fleeting, and that eventually he will lose interest in Oliver as a novelty. The film seems to be building towards a confrontation between the two that will end with Felix impulsively rejecting Oliver for superficial reasons, but in fact, Felix is not only completely justified in his reasoning for rejecting Oliver's love confession but is pretty clearly the innocent one in the situation. Oliver has engineered the entire friendship the two of them share, and manipulated Felix and his family for months.]]

* ArtisticLicense: ‘Saltburn’ is an odd choice of name for a stately home, as Saltburn-by-the-Sea, its namesake, is a fairly dreary northern seaside town.

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Oliver desperately tells Felix that he loves him (multiple times) when [[spoiler:Felix exiles him from Saltburn.]]
* AnimalMotifs: Discussed. Venetia talks about how her father sees Oliver as a [[SneakySpider spider, skulking and spinning plans in the shadows,]] while she sees him as a moth -- small, harmless, attracted to bright, shiny things. [[spoiler: Her father is closer.]]

* BathSuicide: [[spoiler:Venetia slashes her wrists in the bathtub (after Oliver provides her with razor blades) not long after Felix dies.]]

* BewareTheQuietOnes: [[spoiler: The quiet, shy, nervous Oliver is actually a devious mastermind who's planned an elaborate plot to steal Felix's family's estate.]]

* ABirthdayNotABreak: Though how much it affected Oliver is ambiguous, [[spoiler:Felix finds out Oliver was lying and attempts to exile him from Saltburn on Oliver's birthday. Oliver then tells Felix he loves him, almost kisses him, and kills him.]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler: Oliver appears to be a shy, awkward boy longing to be part of the upper crust. It turns out that he's been lying through his teeth about his circumstances and spends the entire movie manipulating things in his favor until the entire Catton family is dead either at his hand or via his influence and he now owns their home.]]

* ButNotTooBi: Oliver denies being in love with Felix, but he [[spoiler:gives Farleigh a handjob and tries to give Felix a ForcefulKiss.]] Felix seems extremely attached to Oliver and possessive over his "friends", but he is only shown hooking up with women. Played for laughs by Elspeth, who is married to Sir James but claims to have been "a lesbian once."

* ConsummateLiar: [[spoiler: Oliver. Not only did he make up his entire tragic backstory, he's also been lying to his parents about his time at Oxford, and manages to get Elspeth to accept him as a surrogate son despite hating her and her entire family (Unless he was lying about ''that'' too).]]

* DepravedBisexual:
** [[spoiler: Oliver, [[AmbiguousSituation potentially]]. His sexuality is never made clear, but he ''does'' watch an unsuspecting Felix having sex (multiple times), eat a menstruating Venetia out while she's mid-flow, break into Farleigh's room to have sex with him, and (in one of the film's most infamous scenes) slurp Felix's cum out of a bathtub drain.]]
** Farleigh is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] example, by comparison. His sexuality is a lot less ambiguous, at least - given the level of attraction he displays towards men and women alike. He's also one of the more outwardly-unpleasant and rude characters, and has (according to Felix) been kicked out of "every school in England" for having sex with the teachers. Mean streak aside, he never does anything quite as malevolent and twisted as the above example.

* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Our first inclination that something is seriously wrong the morning after Oliver's birthday party is when the ultra-stiff and cold Duncan is spotted with his hair disheveled. Oliver actually seems genuinely shocked to see him like this, and Duncan notices the look and immediately smooths his hair down. [[spoiler:Fourteen years later, Elspeth has cut her hair into a more practical and suitable style than what she had before, signifying that she's managed to become a better person (or at least a more serious person) in the interim.]]

* HiddenDepths: As vapid and superficial as she is, Venetia appears suspicious of Oliver from the start and calls him out after [[spoiler: Felix's death. She's right]]. Her equally vapid and self-absorbed mother Elspeth is genuinely devastated [[spoiler: at losing both of her children. What's more, she takes a genuine liking to Oliver, welcoming him into the house and insisting on planning a birthday party for him]].

* {{Hypocrite}}: Much of Farleigh's disliking of Oliver turns out to be pure projection. He teases Oliver relentlessly for being lower-class and never quite being able to fit in with his upper-class friends, or having to get by through begging his rich associates for money. [[spoiler: All of these apply to Farleigh - perhaps to an even greater extent, given that we eventually discover Oliver's living situation isn't nearly as precarious as he pretended. Farleigh's particular contempt for Oliver, and the multiple times he humiliates him, are most likely efforts to make himself feel "above" Oliver.]]
* ILoveTheDead: Downplayed. [[spoiler:While Oliver doesn't do anything with Felix's dead body, he ''does'' hump his freshly-laid grave. Later, he grinds himself against Elspeth during (and shortly after) her death.]]

* JealousRomanticWitness: Oliver [[ThePeepingTom watches through the window]] as Felix hooks up with Annabelle.
* {{Jerkass}}: Farleigh is the most openly unpleasant member of the Catton household.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: For murdering his best friend, along with his entire family, Oliver ends up the sole heir to his fortune and owner of the Saltburn manor, last seen [[HappyDance triumphantly dancing]] through the empty halls.]]

* LifesavingMisfortune: Farleigh [[spoiler: gets kicked out of Saltburn after being framed for Felix's death. Once we learn what a murderous bastard Oliver and how he engineered Felix's and nearly everyone else's death, we realize that Farleigh was actually lucky that this happened, lest he become a victim too.]]
* MaleFrontalNudity: Oliver, briefly, as he cavorts through the empty house.
* MeaningfulName: Oliver Quick. "Oliver" suggests Literature/OliverTwist, one of the most famous poor boys in literary history, while "Quick" suggests [[GuileHero cleverness]].

* OldRetainer: Duncan, the butler at Saltburn, fills this role, being loyal to the house and the Catton family.

* OnlyFriend: When Oliver is just another Oxford freshman, Michael is the only person he's more than casually acquainted with, although Oliver doesn't seem to particularly like him much.

* PennyAmongDiamonds: Oliver is the orphaned child of addicts among TheBeautifulElite of the English aristocracy. [[spoiler:He's faking it. He may still qualify as the only middle-class person in the upper classes, but he isn't poor.]]

* PopularityCycle: It's implied that Felix has this problem: Venetia dismissively tells Oliver that she likes him even more than "last year's one", the implication being that Felix picks up impoverished people (especially men) to befriend and then discards him when he's bored of them. He also ghosts his on/off girlfriend without talking to her and leaves her without an explanation in their halls.
* PleaseWakeUp: A variant -- [[spoiler: when he finds Felix's body, Sir James keeps insisting that he's just cold while trying to get him a jacket.]]

* RagsToRiches: Downplayed. [[spoiler:This ''would'' be a completely straight example, as Oliver ends up inheriting Saltburn (and presumably whatever is left of Elspeth's fortune) after killing her. However, while Oliver is nowhere near as wealthy as the Cattons, his sob story of drugs and addicted parents in horrific poverty is a total fabrication designed to appeal to Felix and the family, and his parents appear middle class at the very least.]]
* RedHerring: [[spoiler:Many, many people warn Oliver that Felix's affections are fleeting, and that eventually he will lose interest in Oliver as a novelty. The film seems to be building towards a confrontation between the two that will end with Felix impulsively rejecting Oliver for superficial reasons, but in fact, Felix is not only completely justified in his reasoning for rejecting Oliver's love confession but is pretty clearly the innocent one in the situation. Oliver has engineered the entire friendship the two of them share, and manipulated Felix and his family for months.]]

* ReplacementGoldfish: [[spoiler:Elspeth insists that Oliver stay at Saltburn after Felix's death with the implication that she wants it to be permanent, clearly wanting him to serve as a surrogate son.]]
* RichBitch:
** Elspeth is very much this, declaring that she "can't stand ugliness" and snarking that a friend who recently committed suicide would do "anything for attention".
** Her daughter Venetia is a SourOutsideSadInside version, openly snarking at Oliver and demeaning him in part because she can't or doesn't want to stand up to Elspeth, who views her as disappointing.
** Lady Daphne also seems to qualify, although she's only in two scenes. She [[AwfulWeddedLife openly hates her husband]], doesn't understand why Oliver thinks it's "nice" that she has children, and tells him that the purpose of school is that she doesn't have to see them or deal with them.

* SignificantWardrobeShift: When we see Elspeth fourteen years later, she's dressed practically and appropriately instead of the high-fashion outfits she was previously swanning around in and has [[ExpositoryHairstyleChange cut her hair]] into a more suitable style too. This suggests that she's no longer the frivolous RichBitch she once was.
* SpoiledSweet: Felix is a RareMaleExample. He's LovedByAll at home and at Oxford, comes from extreme wealth and an aristocratic lineage, refers casually to the priceless art they have at Saltburn, and is genuinely always very kind to Oliver--additionally, his mother comments that he's kind to everyone. However, he also seems somewhat oblivious to his own wealth and privilege, and is a bit possessive over Oliver.

* ThickerThanWater: Invoked by Farleigh (Felix's cousin), who tells Oliver that he'll still be at Saltburn after Felix has gotten bored with Oliver because it's ''his'' house and ''his'' family. [[spoiler:This seems to be what flicks the switch in Oliver's brain to frame Farleigh for providing Felix with the drugs that killed him, which presumably gets him exiled forever.]]
* TheThingThatWouldNotLeave:
** Pamela is a version, though it's not clear if she's simply too dim to notice that they want rid of her. Elspeth apparently believed she was a cool rock chick instead of self-pitying and dimwitted.
** Oliver becomes this after [[spoiler:Felix and Venetia's deaths]], though only Sir James seems aware of it. [[spoiler:He senses Oliver's bad influence on Elspeth and pays him to leave and never bother Elspeth again. It works for a while, until he dies fourteen years later in 2020.]]

* TheVamp: [[spoiler: Oliver is a RareMaleExample of this, given the way he seduces both Venetia (a woman) and Farleigh (a man) with equal ease as part of his many schemes.]]
* WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: Farleigh can immediately tell that [[PennyAmongDiamonds Oliver]]'s tux is a rental, and subtly mocks him about it.

[[quoteright:511:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saltburn_ver3.jpg]]

* BlueBlood: The honorific ‘Sir’ (James), and the fact that his title is hereditary, denotes that Felix and Venetia’s father James is a baronet. Whilst baronetcies are hereditary, typically passing in the male line, they are not peers, having never been conferred noble status. Socially, however, baronets are regarded as part of the British aristocracy. Elspeth, James’ wife, would use the title ‘Lady’ (Elspeth), and the baronetcy and associated estate would pass to Felix upon his father’s death.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with Farleigh, who is unique among the principal cast for ''not'' having been killed by Oliver's machinations by the end of the film. His final fate is left unknown, since he's kicked out of Saltburn seemingly for good (again, thanks to Oliver).]]

* AnimalMotifs: Discussed. Venetia talks about how her father sees Oliver as a spider, skulking and spinning plans in the shadows, while she sees him as a moth -- small, harmless, attracted to bright, shiny things. [[spoiler: Her father is closer.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[TagLine We're all about to lose our minds.]]'']]

** Oliver is somewhere between his and AmbiguouslyGay. He's madly besotted with Felix and gets close to an AlmostKiss during their confrontation (though explicitly denies being in love with him), he gives Farleigh a handjob, and he kisses and goes down on Venetia, but [[spoiler:was likely doing so just to get closer to the various Cattons in pursuit of Saltburn.]]

** Oliver is somewhere between this and AmbiguouslyGay. He's madly besotted with Felix and gets close to an AlmostKiss during their confrontation (though explicitly denies being in love with him), he gives Farleigh a handjob, and he kisses and goes down on Venetia, but [[spoiler:was likely doing so just to get closer to the various Cattons in pursuit of Saltburn.]]

** PlayedForLaughs with Elspeth, who blurts out that she "was a lesbian at one stage" but gave it up because women were too wet for her liking.

* RedIsViolent: The staff of Saltburn draw the curtains to the dining room so that the family taking their lunch within doesn't have to see [[spoiler: Felix's dead body being carted off by the coroner just outside. Thus, the family's efforts to ignore the situation at hand are bathed in a dark shade of crimson for the rest of the scene. Just to hammer things home, a dazed Venetia empties a bottle of red wine into an overflowing glass, staining the tablecloth red, as well.]]

** Near the end of Oliver's movielong explanation his relationship with Felix [[spoiler: to Elspeth]]:

* BewareTheQuietOnes: [[spoiler: The quiet, shy, nervous Oliver is actually a devious mastermind who's planned an elaborate plot to steal Felix's family's estate.]]

* BigFancyHouse: Saltburn is this: an enormous English estate with several bedrooms, sitting rooms, and libraries, an adjacent lake, and a massive hedge maze.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Explicitly, squickily averted. [[spoiler:Venetia tries to warn Oliver against performing oral sex upon her, as it's "the wrong time of the month", but Oliver goes ahead anyway - even rubbing some of her period blood on her face.]]

* BewareTheQuietOnes: [[spoiler: The quiet, shy, nervous Oliver is actually a devious mastermind who's planned this whole thing to steal Felix's estate.]]

* PleaseWakeUp: A variant -- [[spoiler: when he finds Felix's body, Sir James starts insisting that he's just cold, and tries to get him a jacket.]]

** Near the end of Oliver's movielong explanation his relationship with Felix [[spoiler: to Elspeth (if you believe him, that is)]]:
-->[[spoiler: [[HiddenDisdainReveal I hated him. I hated all of you.]]]]

* AnimalMotifs: Discussed. Venetia talks about her father sees Oliver as a spider, skulking and spinning plans in the shadows, while she sees him as a moth -- small, harmless, attracted to bright, shiny things. [[spoiler: Her father is closer.]]

-->[[spoiler: [[HiddenDisdainReveal I hated him. I hated all of you]]]]