There have been abundant research fruits on contourites for about 50 years. The work on the contourite are developed rapidly with technique and ocean awareness improving in recent 10 years, and hence, lots of new achievements have been emerged. Based on reviewing the research history of contourites in brief, combing the latest research results, the advance and achievement has been summarized. Contourites showing fine-coarse-fine cyclicity is usually fine, whose sedimentary structures and bioturbations are abundant. Based on morphology and sedimentary process, the contourites could be divided into elongated, mounded drifts, channel-related drifts, patch drifts and so on. The sedimentary model includes simple current pathway, multiple current pathway and down-slope and along-slope interaction. Furthermore, interaction between down-slope and along-slope is one of the hot spots of deepwater deposits research. At last, the facing problem and direction of work on contourites in the future were proposed as follows:1) Perfecting identification marks and popularizing research results. 2) Integrating various measures and theories, discussing the coupling relationship between sedimentary processes and tectonic evolution, paleoceanography, climate changing. 3) Reinforce to work potential of hydrocarbon exploration.