The extremely high temperature in local areas,caused by the increasing global warming,results easily in the abortion of spikelets in fertility and yield loss in rice. Identifying genetic resources with heat tolerance to develop heat tolerant varieties is a very important way to alleviate the heat damage in rice production. The authors reviewed the research advances from the aspects such as the effects of heat stress on the development of spikelets,the physiological and biochemical features and molecular mechanism of spikelet sterility under heat stress and the rice varieties or lines identified to be tolerant to high temperature and their flowering characteristics. The issues to be paid more attention to were also discussed for the future research of heat tolerance in rice.