In recent years, the development of intelligent self-healing coatings has become one of the frontier research hotspots in the field of corrosion and protection. After being damaged by external force, the self-healing coating can repair the damaged areas timely and efficiently, so as to restore the corrosion resistance of the coating. By adding fillers with photothermal performance, the photothermally triggered self-healing coating can be realized. When cracks and scratches occur on the coating surface, the coating can be healed by a series of physical and chemical reactions triggered by light, achieving long-term protection such as removing gap and crack and restoring coating. Photothermal self-healing has many advantages such as high precision, high speed and long operating distance, possessing broad application prospects. This paper reviewed the structure design and repair mechanism of photothermally triggered self-healing coatings, the types and characteristics of fillers, as well as the repairing efficiency and the anti-corrosion applications of coatings. It mainly summarized the latest research progress of self-healing coatings based on photothermal responsive materials such as carbon-based fillers, plasmonic nanomaterials, organic fillers and Fe3O4 nanoparticles, and analyzed the effects of filler content, illumination wavelength, illumination intensity, matrix type, etc. on self-healing efficiency and corrosion resistance of coatings. Finally, the existing problems and the development prospects of photothermal self-healing coatings were proposed. In the future, the coating preparation process should be further optimized, and the photothermal conversion efficiency should be improved, and the preparation cost should be reduced. In addition, multiple healing mechanisms of coatings should be combined to jointly improve the long-term protection ability of coatings, so that the industrial application can be realized very soon.