🚨 There are obviously MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Barbie! 🚨
1. First, Barbie opens with an homage to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, with Barbie entering a desolate landscape just like when the alien monolith arrives in Kubrick's classic film.
2. And, when Barbie is first seen during the 2001: A Space Odyssey homage, she's wearing the black-and-white bathing suit that the first ever Barbie wore when the doll was released by Mattel in 1959.
3. When Barbie drives through Barbie Land, you can see that the movie theater is playing The Wizard of Oz (1939). Greta Gerwig has said that The Wizard of Oz is one of many classic soundstage musicals that influenced Barbie.
4. Also, a pink brick road leads in and out of Barbie Land, which is a nod to the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz. And, you can see there's a rainbow over Barbie Land, which is likely a reference to the song "Over the Rainbow."
5. While traveling back and forth between Barbie Land and the Real World, one of the traveling scenes includes riding a tandem bicycle through a field of flowers, which is just like in The Wizard of Oz when they journey through the field of poppies.
6. When Barbie meets Ruth Handler at the Mattel headquarters and they have tea together, their hands touching is meant to mirror "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo. This is actually Margot Robbie's favorite Easter egg in the film.
7. When Barbie finds Sasha at her school, she's sitting with three other girls. While the names of these characters haven't been officially announced, Sasha is the name of a Bratz doll, and there were four Bratz in total, just like Sasha and her friends.
8. Gloria's husband in Barbie is played by Ryan Piers Williams, who is America Ferrera's real-life husband.
9. When Gloria, Sasha, and Gloria's husband drop Barbie off at her gynecologist appointment at the end of the movie, Gloria's husband says "Si se puede" before Gloria says it's a political statement. The phrase was notably used in the 2002 Disney Channel movie Gotta Kick it Up!, which America starred in.
10. When Ken sings "I'm Just Ken" during the war of the Kens, and it turns into an iconic dance number, the set and costumes are similar to the dream ballet in Singin' in the Rain (1952)
11. The older woman that Barbie says is beautiful is costume designer Ann Roth, who has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Costume Design. She's won two Oscars for her work on The English Patient (1996) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020).
12. On the beach in Barbie Land, you can spot a pegasus statue, which is a small nod to Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, an animated Barbie movie from 2005.
13. Stereotypical Barbie wears some Chanel clothing and accessories, like the custom Chanel spring 1995 necklace she has towards the end of the movie. Margot Robbie has been an ambassador for Chanel since 2018, so all of the costume pieces that weren't handmade by Jacqueline Durran and her team were Chanel.
14. The yellow outfit Barbie wears before she walks out of Barbie Land with Ruth is likely a nod to a Barbie in a yellow dress reportedly being the most popular Barbie costume in the last five years, according to Mattel and costume designer Jacqueline Durran.
15. When Barbie wears a pink ribbon in her hair when things start to go wrong for her in Barbie Land, it's a nod to Catherine Deneuve's hair in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). The movie was an inspiration for Greta Gerwig while making Barbie.
16. The moment when Barbie walks up the steps to visit Weird Barbie for the first time is an homage to a similar scene when Victoria climbs a set of stairs in The Red Shoes (1948).
17. When Weird Barbie offers Barbie a chance to learn about the Real World, the scene is similar to when Neo is offered the choice between the red and blue pill in The Matrix (1999).
18. The subtle and hilarious joke about Proust Barbie not selling well is a nod to "Remembrance of Things Past" in Swann's Way, where he is "literally thrown back into his childhood through the taste of the madeleine," according to Greta Gerwig.
19. Also, you can spot Proust Barbie, who is played by Lucy Boynton, inside Weird Barbie's house when Gloria, Sasha, and Allan return to Barbie Land to help Barbie.
20. In Barbie's car, if you look closely, you can see that the odometer reads "030959," which is March, 9, 1959, aka when the first Barbie toy launched.
21. When Barbie arrives back in Barbie Land, which is now Kendom, Ken tells Barbie she caught him reading and holds up a book about horses. The book was actually a gift from Margot Robbie to Ryan Gosling during filming.
22. At the end of the movie, when the Kens and Barbies reunite, Ncuti Gatwa's Ken says he just misses his friend Barbie, and it's Physicist Barbie, who is played by Emma Mackey. The duo are notably great friends IRL and star together on Sex Education.
23. When Barbie and Ken find their cowboy outfits in Venice Beach, the scene is an homage to Midnight Cowboy (1969) when Joe Buck arrives in NYC and has a fish-out-of-water experience, much like Barbie and Ken.
24. When we see where Aaron Dinkins and the interns work at Mattel, their cubicles are set up like the office in PlayTime (1967) directed by Jacques Tati.
25. Midge, Video Girl Barbie, Magic Earring Ken, Growing Up Skipper, Sugar Daddy Ken, and even Tanner the pooping dog were all real dolls that Mattel created that were either surrounded by controversy upon release and/or discontinued.
26. The outfit Allan wears through a majority of Barbie is the same outfit the original Allan doll wore when he was created in 1964.
27. When Barbie is living in the Real World at the end of the movie, you can see that she's wearing Birkenstocks instead of heels.
28. Love Island UK star Chris Taylor appears as a Ken who gives awards to other Kens when they take over Barbie Land. Chris landed the small cameo after he met Margot Robbie at an afterparty for Birds of Prey, and Margot is a huge fan of UK reality TV.
29. When Ruth Handler comes to Barbie Land, she makes a quick comment about her financial troubles. In real life, Ruth was charged with tax fraud and false reporting in 1978 after she resigned as president of Mattel.
30. The airport in Barbie Land is called "BAX," a nod to LAX, the notable international airport in Los Angeles.
31. And finally, when all of the Kens are serenading the Barbies with "Push" by Matchbox Twenty, you can see there's a store in the background called "Barbiedales," a reference to Bloomingdale's.
