The state art of dinoflagellate heterotrophy are reviewed in this paper. Heterotrophic dinoflagellates are widespreadly in dinoflagellates, only few species are living on autotrophic mechanism sensu stricto (autotrophic amphitrophy) alone. Nearly half of the dinoflagellate species are apochlorotic, and the rest dinoflagellate species have organic nutritional needs even if they have chloroplasts, called mixotrophy. These mixotrophy dinoflagellates do not necessarily uptake organic compounds as the major carbon sources, but vitamins, biotin and so on for growth and reproduction. The mixotrophy dinoflagellates can live not only on actively uptaking dissovled organic matters (osmotrophy) and extracellular digestion of food with subsequent uptake of the dissolved products (saprotrophy), but also parasitic (parasitism) and symbiotic (symbiosis) way to support their growth. Most apochlorotic dinoflagellates live on organic matters as their only carbon source, called heterotrophic amphitrophy sensu stricto, or organotrophy, which are the majority of heterotrophic dinoflagellates. There are three types of organotrophy, parasitic organotrophy, symbiosis organotrophy and phagotrophy. This article discusses the three kinds of phagotrophy in detail: phagotrophic feeding, peduncle feeding and pallium feeding. Phagotrophic feeding is commonly found in either thecate or athecate apochlorotic dinoflagellates, phagotrophic dinoflagellates mainly feed through the junction of the flagellar grooves in sulcus or the bottom of the hypotheca for the prey, but through the apical hole and suture are also found. Peduncle feeding dinoflagellates feed by means of an extinsible, tube-like "peduncle/phagopod", by which attached to unicellular algae, ciliates and even small metazoans, pierce through their prey cytoplasmic membrane and suck their cytoplasma to get the nutrition. Peduncle feeding is the majority of phagotrophy in dinoflagellates. Pallium feeding only is found in Protoperidinium and Diplopsalis, feeding on other plankton with a pallium (sac) extruded from a microtubular basket outside the cell, wrapping and digesting the prey in pallium. The sizes of dinoflagellates prey have a wide range, from a few microns to hundreds of microns. Some dinoflagellates feed selectively. They locate and feed on special prey by chemical sensing, and consequently increase the biovolume and ecdysis. Other types of heterotrophic feeding by dinoflagellates, such as filter/interception feeding, pseudopodial feeding, stompopd feeding, tentacle/piston feeding etc., is briefly introduced in this article. The methodology of dinoflagellate heterotroph study, an attempt to understand the evolutionary meaning of these heterotrophic manifestations, their implications on the marine ecosystem, and future research topics are also briefly discussed.