Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself". This is achieved by an examination of the aristocratic Flyte family, as seen by the narrator, Charles Ryder.

Time included Brideshead Revisited in its list of "All-time 100 Novels." In various letters, Waugh himself refers to the novel a number of times as his "magnum opus"; however, in 1950 he wrote to Graham Greene saying "I re-read Brideshead Revisited and was appalled." In Waugh's preface to the 1960 revised edition of Brideshead the author explains the circumstances in which the novel was written, in the six months between December 1944 and June 1945 following a minor parachute accident. He is mildly disparaging of the novel, saying; "It was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disaster — the period of soya beans and Basic English — and in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful."

Brideshead Revisited was brought to the screen in the ITV drama serialisation of 1981, produced by Granada Television. A film adaptation of the book is currently in pre-production, scheduled for release in 2008, which will concentrate solely on the relationship between Charles and Julia.

Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 television miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh. The book was adapted to the screen by producer Derek Granger and Martin Thompson after the initial script by John Mortimer was rejected. It was directed mainly by Charles Sturridge, but part of one or more episodes by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It starred Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, Anthony Andrews as Lord Sebastian Flyte, Laurence Olivier as Lord Marchmain, Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain, Diana Quick as Lady Julia Flyte, and Jane Asher as Lady Celia Ryder; also featuring Phoebe Nicholls as Lady Cordelia Flyte, John Gielgud as Edward Ryder, Simon Jones as Lord Brideshead, Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche, Stéphane Audran as Cara, Lord Marchmain's lover, and Charles Keating as Rex Mottram.

The Oxford scenes were largely filmed at Waugh's alma mater, Hertford College, Wadham College and Christ Church. The location for Brideshead, the fictional manor, was Castle Howard in Yorkshire. Scenes on the deck of a transatlantic liner were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2. By the standards of British television, the drama series of the late 1970s was lavish; Granada Television's broadcasting franchise was up for competitive renewal in 1981 so the company designed Brideshead Revisited to prove themselves a quality company.

It was shown in the United States on Public Broadcasting Service and was considered daring at the time for its willingness to show an extended sex scene between Charles Ryder and Julia Flyte. Tom Wolfe wrote that the series was successful in the United States because it was a plutography, i.e., a "graphic depiction of the lives of the rich."

The memorable theme with a high baroque trumpet was composed by Geoffrey Burgon.

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, the adaptation was placed tenth.

This program received so many votes that it finished seventh in the the Best of Masterpiece Theatre vote conducted for the 35th anniversary of that anthology series. Anthony Andrews came on at the end of the program to explain that it was not a Masterpiece Theatre production. It had aired in the US as a part of the PBS series Great Performances in 1982.

Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons play two young men who meet at Oxford. Irons though of no family or money becomes friends with Andrews when Andrews throws up in his dorm room through an open window. He then invites Irons to dinner after Aolysius 'refuses to talk to Andrews'unless he is forgiven. Irons becomes involved with Andrews family which is landed gentry and Catholic in Protestant England. The story is told in flashback as Irons, now an officer in the British Army is moved with his company to an English country home that he discovers to be Brideshead, Andrews family home where Irons has a series of memories of his youth and young manhood, his loves, life, and a journey of faith and anguish. Written by John Vogel