In the last few years, the automobiles industry has grown by leaps and bounds. The requirements of automobiles machine parts provide cutting industry with more chances and challenges. The demands of safety and comfort of automobiles as well as the development strategies of reduction of pollutant emission and green technologies, guide cutting technology development towards high speed, high efficiency, high accuracy, green and intelligent. It also has more requirements on the performance of tool materials. TiCN coatings are widely used, especially in cutting non-ferrous metals and alloys, for its high hardness and high wear resistance. This article summarized the micro structure of TiCN coatings, and pointed out that carbons had an effect of refining grains and restraining the formation of columnar structure. Crystallization and preferred orientation of TiCN coatings were changed with the variation of carbon content. The main performance features of TiCN coatings were summarized in details, including hardness and hardening mechanism, wear resistance and antifriction mechanism, thermal stability and thermal failure. This review also introduced the deposition principle of TiCN coatings and pointed out the merit and demerit of the various manufacturing methods and the key process parameters. The latest researches on the improvement of TiCN coatings at home and abroad were analyzed. It concluded that multiple stratification, multi-alloying and nano-crystallization tendency of TiCN coatings were the ways to improve the overall performance at elevated temperatures, and they were also development directions of coatings to meet the demands of new cutting techniques such as high speed cutting and dry cutting techniques.