Abstract: Surgical resection or liver transplantation are the primary curative treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, a minority of patients are eligible for these treatment strategies upon initial diagnosis. With the development of radiotherapy technology, radiotherapy is being used increasingly in the treatment of HCC. A large number of studies have shown that external beam radiotherapy has obvious advantages for different stages of HCC. Stereotactic radiotherapy provides an alternative to radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of early unresectable HCC, and radiotherapy combined with other local or systemic treatments, including transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and sorafenib, has been applied for the treatment of locally advanced and distant metastatic lesions. The particle beam has the advantages of Bragg peak and better dose distribution compared to conventional radiography, showing promising prospect in clinical application. This review focuses on the developments in the field of external beam radiotherapy in the treatment of HCC.