Bismuth ferrite is considered to be the largest prospect in the field of device, owing to its both ferroelectricity and antiferromagnetic property at room temperature.It is considered to be the most promising multiferroic compound.The history of the development of multiferroic materials, the crystal structure of bismuth ferrite, and related work and progress on ion substitution modification of ferroelectric properties of bismuth ferrite film in recent years were reviewed in this paper.The focus was on the replacement of the A site by the lanthanide and the low cost alkali metal element, the substitution of the B-site by the transition metal element, and the common substitution of the A and B sites for the leakage current and ferroelectricity of the bismuth ferrite film.The effect of different elements and different doping amounts on residual polarization and coercive electric field value of bismuth ferrate film substituted by A and B sites were systematically summarized.Accordingly, the effect of various elemental ion substitution modification on bismuth ferrite film can be more intuitively understood.At the end of this paper, the urgent work on the influence of fabrication process, electrode material, film thickness and operating voltage of bismuth ferrite thin films was put forward.