As an important research field of alliance relationship management, the research of alliance break-up is of great significance for alliance stability, firms’ network dynamics and performance. In this review, we take alliance terminations, break-up, withdraw, dissolution, disband and instability as key words to review the foreign literature about alliance dissolution and firm exiting from alliances. This paper firstly clarifies the definition, connotation and firms’ behavior motivation of alliance break-up in multiple theoretical perspectives. Then, from the viewpoint of instrument and social factors, the alliance break-up research concerning antecedent factors, context factors and consequences are reviewed at firm, bilateral alliance and network levels. Moreover, the research on the consequences of alliance break-up are reviewed and summarized. This review attempts to contribute in three aspects. Firstly, we clarify the connotation of alliance break-up from multi-perspectives since the definition and research boundaries are ambiguous at present. Thus, this review could enrich the alliance break-up theory and promote the future empirical study of alliances. Additionally, this review thoroughly sorts out foreign empirical researches on the antecedents and consequences of alliance break-up. We also summarize main factors and important conclusions from multi-levels and put forward future research directions. Finally, based on firms’ network context, we integrate the existing scattered research conclusions from the perspective of the exogenous and endogenous mechanisms of alliance break-up, and establish a systematic theoretical framework.