In this paper, more than 100 articles related to anode catalysts for the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) are reviewed, mainly focusing on the three most active areas: (1) progress in preparation methods of Pt-Ru catalysts with respect to activity improvement and utilization optimization; (2) preparation of novel carbon materials as catalyst supports to create a highly dispersed and stably supported catalysts; (3) exploration of new catalysts with a low noble metal content and non-noble metal elements through fast activity down-selection methods such as combinatorial methods. Suggested research and development (R&D) directions for new DMFC anode catalysis are also discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.