As key equipment connecting offshore platforms to subsea pipelines, marine risers are a critical component of the overall system for deepwater oil and gas exploitation and are crucial for the high-quality development of the marine oil industry. In the context of attaching more attention to the development of deepwater oil and gas resources, this study reviews the research and application of marine risers in deepwater oil and gas development and looks forward to future development, which has reference values for both theoretical research and engineering practices. In this paper, the strict requirements for service performances of marine risers are analyzed in terms of fatigue resistance and corrosion resistance. ​A review of the current status of three typical and widely used marine risers (i.‍e., drilling risers, steel catenary risers, and tension-leg platform tendon risers) is provided. Meanwhile, these marine rises in China and abroad are compared, and their development directions are prospected. Overall, marine risers are a type of oil drilling equipment that have high risks, extreme difficulty, and high added values. Owing to the complex manufacturing processes and high technical contents, the core materials and technologies of marine risers have been monopolized by large companies outside China. Riser materials of China have problems including large fluctuations in strength, low fracture toughness, and insufficient fatigue resistance, failing to meet the stringent and complex marine service conditions and thus restraining the development of China's offshore oil industry. Therefore, a systematic layout is urgently needed to guide upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly carry out basic and application research on related products with universities and research institutes, so as to realize collaborative innovation across the entire industrial chain of marine riser manufacturing.