The high functionalities of naturally occurring macromolecules such as DNA

proteins and collagen arise from their supernatural helical structures. The precisely ordered secondary structure plays important roles in realizing biological activities and is the ubiquitous object in nature. Helical structure is chiral and optically active

and the unique structure provides sophisticated properties and functions for helical polymers

which allows the potential applications of helical polymers in chiral recognition and asymmetric catalysis together with chirality response and data storage. In this paper

the overview of helical polymers is provided

and the research progress of static and dynamic helical polymers

as well as functions and applications of helical polymers

is reviewed in detail.