Multimodal sentiment analysis has become an important research area in the field of artificial intelligence. With the latest advances in deep learning, this technology has reached new heights. It has great potential for both application and research, making it a popular research topic. This review provides an overview of the definition, background, and development of multimodal sentiment analysis. It also covers recent datasets and advanced models, emphasizing the challenges and future prospects of this technology. Finally, it looks ahead to future research directions. It should be noted that this review provides constructive suggestions for promising research directions and building better performing multimodal sentiment analysis models, which can help researchers in this field.