The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a well-established model system for understanding fundamental cellular processes relevant to higher eukaryotic organisms. Less known is its value for virus research, an area in which Saccharomyces cerevisiae has proven to be very fruitful as well. The present review will discuss the main achievements of yeast-based studies in basic and applied virus research. These include the analysis of the function of individual proteins from important pathogenic viruses, the elucidation of key processes in viral replication through the development of systems that allow the replication of higher eukayotic viruses in yeast, and the use of yeast in antiviral drug development and vaccine production.