Abstract: Current cancer therapies, including chemotherapies and radiotherapies, can induce toxic side effects to normal tissues with low specificity to cancer cells and usually have limited efficacy as results of drug resistance. Phototherapies kill cancer cells under irradiation of light, preferably near-infrared light with high tissue penetration, and would normally show little toxic effect in the dark. Over the past decade, nanomaterial-based phototherapies have made tremendous progress worldwide. These therapies show remarkable results against cancer in many preclinical studies. This study reviews the recent achievements in the use of functional nanomaterials for photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, and photo-controlled therapeutic platforms and discusses future prospects and challenges in this field.