The blood-retinal barrier is an important structural basis for maintaining the homeostasis of the retinal environment, but there is still a lack of further research on its complete structure and function. The in vitro blood-retinal barrier model has the characteristics of controllable, efficient, fast and stable, and has become an effective tool to study the specific structure and function of the barrier. This paper mainly reviews the structure, function and in vitro model of blood-retinal barrier, which is helpful to promote the study of physiology, biochemistry, pathopharmacology and clinic of blood-retinal barrier. It also provides a common and key experimental basis for the study of fundus vascular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy.