Lithium-ion batteries have made tremendous impact on many sectors of our society; however, the intrinsic limitations of Li-ion chemistry make them fall short of meeting the increasing demands of developing more advanced portable electronics, electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage systems. Therefore, battery chemistries beyond Li ions are being intensively investigated and need urgent breakthroughs towards commercial applications, wherein, the use of metallic Li is one of the most favorite choices. Despite several decades of oblivion due to safety concerns on the growth of lithium dendrites, metallic Li anodes are now poised to revive, thanks to the advancement of investigative tools and globally-invested efforts. In this review, we first summarize the existing issues in Li anodes and their underlying reasons, then highlight the recent progress of developing high-performance Li anodes, andfinally we lay out the remaining challenges and opportunities for exploring practical metallic Li anodes.