In recent decades, polymer materials have become one of the indispensable materials in production and daily life owing to their high performance, easy modification, and light weight. Polymer materials undergo oxidative aging during processing, storage and use. There are many ways to delay the oxidation of polymer materials. Adding antioxidants is one of the simple and effective methods. The research on antioxidants of polymer materials in the past decade was sorted out, and they were divided into three types: anti-precipitation type, high-efficiency type, and non-toxic environmental protection type for analysis. According to the latest development of polymer material antioxidants, it is believed that anti-precipitation, high efficiency and non-toxic environmental protection are the main directions of its research and development. Macromolecular antioxidants, loaded antioxidants and reactive antioxidants can effectively improve the anti-precipitation performance of small molecular antioxidants. Among them, macromolecular antioxidants have better development potential. The use of intramolecular synergy is one of the effective means to increase the efficiency of antioxidants, and bio-based antioxidants are the main research and development direction of non-toxic environmental protection antioxidants.