In the new era of competitive world, need has been increased tremendously for the development of lightweight, low cost, an efficient, corrosion resistive, high reflectivity, tough conducive materials. Many researchers have used aluminum alloys to investigate the effects of added alloys on various properties of the material. Pure aluminium is a weak, soft and ductile material, but adding a small amount of impurity in aluminium, its properties such as tensile strength and hardness can be increased considerably. Aluminum alloy composites are better in thermal expansion coefficient, corrosion resistance, wear resistance and other mechanical properties. Metal matrix composites are advanced materials, which combine reinforcement materials to produce composite materials, which are designed to obtain different properties like stiffness, impact resistance or use in high temperature environments. Nanocomposite is emerging as advanced materials with high strength for the industrial applications that have capacity to satisfy recent demands of advanced engineering applications. In this paper, an emphasis is given on collecting, analyzing and concluding very vast amount of work on the formation and characterization of metal matrix composites and nanocomposites and to find out gaps in recent related research and developments. © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.