As one of the most important plant traits of crops, crop phenology reflects the characteristics of crop growth and development; its variation also affects crop production. Therefore, crop phenology is a reliable and comprehensive biological indicator reflecting global climate change. Global climate change, marked by rising temperatures, has exerted significant impacts on crop phenology. Under the background of global climate change, revealing the mechanism of global climate change impacts on crop phenology and growth as well as the formation of crop yield is of theoretical and practical significance. At present, crop phenology shifts and their influencing factors have become a hot research topic and an important international issue, thus a large number of studies have been carried out, and achieved rich and effective results. In this paper, we mainly focus on the research progress of crop phenological changes under the background of climate change, including the driving factors and their influencing mechanisms of crop phenological changes as well as methods of research on crop phenology, and the key scientific issues which need to be solved in future study are also discussed. The conclusions of this research could provide a theoretical basis for understanding the impacts and mechanisms of global climate change on crop phenology and for guiding regional agricultural production practices.