Coal-to-liquid (CTL) is one of the most promising way to efficiently convert coal into fuels and chemicals promoting the clean and efficient utilization of coal resources. With the successful application of indirect coal liquefaction technology in million-ton commercial demonstration plants, the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis slurry bubble column as its core equipment involves gas-liquid-solid three-phase turbulent flow, heat/mass transfer and reaction that change with the enlargement of the reactor diameter and the structural layout of internals, which in turn affects multiple complex processes of reactor performance, resulting in huge challenges in reactor design, scale-up and operation optimization due to lack of information on hydrodynamics with internals over a wide range of operating conditions of commercial interest. Scientific research and industry still continue to pay attention to it. This work gives a state-of-the-art review of the recent studies on the slurry bubble column for gas-to-liquid Fisher-Tropsch processes. It analyzes the main factors affecting the hydrodynamic performance of slurry bubble column, summaries the research on flow pattern, gas holdup, bubble behavior, and heat transfer, introduces the structural characteristics and development of the internals such as gas distributor, internal filtration, and heat exchanger. The effects of various operating variables, including pressure, temperature, gas velocity, catalyst concentration, and reactor geometry on the hydrodynamic and transport parameters as well as the performance of slurry bubble column are discussed. Unfortunately, little effort has been put on reviewing the experiments and simulations for examining the effect of internals on the performance and hydrodynamics of slurry bubble column for Fischer-Tropsch and significant efforts are still required. The research progresses from basic research to engineering technology of slurry bubble column in coal indirect liquefaction process are reviewed. Perspectives are given on the potential application and future research of slurry bubble column. Process intensification technology using internals to improve the performance and computational fluid dynamics will be the development direction in the future.