Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary field that aims to provide new therapeutic ideas using modern technologies to design and develop specific biomaterials in addition to the traditional means of post-traumatic/post-operative tissue regeneration (autologous transplantation, allografts). Among various biomaterials for tissue engineering applications, hydrogels are widely used in biomedical engineering due to their unique biocompatible, mechanically tunable, degradable and highly hydrophilic properties. Among them,photothermal responsive hydrogels have the advantages of temperature controllable and intelligent response in addition to the properties of traditional hydrogels, and thus show promising applications in the fields of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and drug slow release. However, there are few systematic summaries of photothermal responsive hydrogels as tissue engineering grafts. This review provides an overview of the research and development of photothermal responsive hydrogel grafts in recent years,including the historical background of photothermal responsive hydrogels and practical applications, summarizes the relevant research results and discusses them, and finally presents possible challenges and outlooks in the future, with a view to promoting development of photothermal responsive hydrogels in the field of tissue engineering for the reference of related researchers.