Autophagy is a cellular process whose primary function is to degrade long-lived proteins and recycle cellular components. Beside macroautophagy, there are several forms of selective autophagy, including chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), cytoplasm to vacuole targeting (Cvt), pexophagy and mitophagy. In this review, we summarize what is currently known about selective autophagy, and discuss its role in cell death and survival. We also discuss possible mechanisms underlying the selectivity of macroautophagy.