Tribological properties of friction materials have significant influences on the working reliability of mechanical equipment, hence studies on friction materials are greatly beneficial to the improvement of braking efficiency of braking systems. Investigations into the research and development status of brake friction materials were carried out in three aspects: classification and preparation methods, frictional wear resistance and mechanism as well as performance prediction. At first, it was introduced that brake friction materials included metallic, semi-metallic and non-metallic friction materials based on the type of matrix material. Typical preparation methods and application fields of each friction material were presented. Secondly, the influencing laws of braking conditions such as braking pressure and velocity on frictional wear resistance and their function mechanisms were analyzed. Then common wear forms like adhesive wear, abrasive wear, cutting wear, fatigue wear and thermal wear were introduced. The formation mechanism of each wear form and correponding influencing factors were analyzed in detail according to SEM microtopography of non-asbestos brake shoes. In addition, several performance and analysis methods for predicting friction materials performance were concluded. The application of BP neural network was taken as an example to introduce application of artificial intelligence technology to tribology performance prediction. Ultimately, it was pointed out that ceramic and functional friction materials were the developmental trend of friction materials in the future.