To study the research progress in application of nanomaterials in the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor. The principle of SPR and the application of nanomaterials in SPR biosensors in recent years were reviewed in this paper. The research and application of several nanomaterials (gold nanoparticles, gold nanorods, silver nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, graphene and quantum dots) were emphatically summarized. SPR is a surface-sensitive analytical technique based on the detection of changes in the refractive index. However, conventional SPR is unable to measure extremely small changes in the refractive index, which hinders its application in ultrasensitive detection. Using nanomaterials to improve the detection sensitivity and specificity is a developmental direction for SPR biosensor in the future.