During the past 20 years, several multicentre clinical trials have investigated different therapies for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). These landmark studies have provided the scientific community with powerful data regarding the ability of laser photocoagulation, verteporfin therapy, pegaptanib sodium and submacular surgery to treat particular choroidal neovascular lesion types. Accurate interpretation of data from these trials is essential to enable clinicians to make informed decisions about therapeutic interventions. Furthermore, several new treatment options are likely to become available in the next few years and clinicians will have to decide how effective these therapies may be, and how (or if) they should be used in clinical practice. It is therefore timely to review the strengths and weaknesses of the body of evidence for the currently available therapeutic options for patients with choroidal neovascularization due to AMD. Evaluation of the quality of reporting in past clinical trials will also enable critical review of new studies that will be published in the future. This review summarizes the design, reporting and results of key randomized clinical trials, in addition to evaluating the available evidence for new therapies and identifying the important issues that need to be considered when evaluating their efficacy.