Bismuth ferrite is the only single phase multiferroic material which shows both ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic properties at room temperature and potential magneto electric effect between the two ferro orders. The ferroelectric Curie temperature and the antiferromagnetic Neel temperatures are both above room temperature. It has broad application prospects in the fields of optoelectronic devices, spin electric devices, ferroelectric random access memories, magnetoelectric memory. Besides, bismuth ferrite has relatively larger polarization, lower band-gap and large absorption coefficient, and theoretically may become an alternative for next generation of photovoltaic cell because of its photoelectric conversion efficiency. However, there is no clear conclusion about the mechanism of the photovoltaic effect of multiferroic Bismuth ferrite materials. And many problems need to be solved because many factors can affect the photovoltaic effect, including domains, interfaces, thickness, depolarization field, defect, polarization and so on. Based on these considerations above, we review the research progress of Bismuth ferrite thin film of the photovoltaic effect mechanism.