The value and impact that ceramic coatings have had in the development of modern mechanical systems and protection of components exposed to harsh environments are often overlooked and understated. Modern equipment must be capable of withstanding substantial attrition, impact damage, erosion and corrosion that degrades materials across a variety of applications. Ceramic coatings enable a robust protective barrier for underlying substrates that outperforms most alternative film barrier materials (i.e. polymers, metals, glasses). In this work, a comprehensive review of modern ceramic coatings for barrier protection against mechanical wear and chemical attack is discussed in detail over a large breadth of relevant topics and case studies. This review highlights many critical aspects including various coating functionalities, design architectures, processing effects, material classes and promising future directions for engineering high-performance ceramic coating.