Anthocyanins, carotenoids and alkaloids are three major classes of pigments in plant. Among them, anthocyanins impart vivid colors to most angiosperm tissues and organs. It is synthesized through flavonoid biosynthetic pathway, which has been well characterized and studied. Recently, researchers have found that, besides chalcone synthase (CHS), chalcone isomerase (CHI) and flavanone 3 hydrolase (F3H), which are very important enzymes participating in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, dihydroflavonol 4reductase (DFR) also plays a vital role in the anthocyanins biosynthesis. It can catalyze three different kinds of dihydroflavonols and two kinds of flavanones to produce five different anthocyanins precursors, and different members from the DFR gene family confer different catalytic efficiency. Thus, DFR determines the category and content of anthocyanins leading to different colors of plant tissues. In the present review, we summarized the function and regulation characterization of DFR in anthocyanin biosynthesis, those include the feature, evolution and the mechanism of DFR reaction. Moreover, we aslo discussed the relationship between DFR and environment, transcription factors and some structural genes, aiming at providing new insights for further research on DFR and basis for using genetic engineering to change the color of plant tissue and organ.