The Fabry-Perot resonator (FPR) antenna has found wide applications in microwave and millimeter waves and recently attracted considerable interest. In this paper, a summary of planar and cylindrical structures, analytic models and research development is presented, and a comparison between these structures and analytic models is made, showing that such analytic models as the FP cavity mode, electromagnetic band gap (EBG) defect mode, transmission line mode, and leaky-wave mode are consistent when applied to analyze this type of resonator antenna. Some interesting topics under recent research, including dual or multi-band, improvement of gain bandwidth, low profile and beam control, are surveyed.