Acute or chronic renal failure is a deadly severe disease. There are only two ways to cure these diseases, namely, hemodialysis and kidney transplant. Hemodialysis is the main means for curing patients at present. The key hemodialysis equipments are dialysis-membranes. The demand for dialysis-membranes with high performance is unceasingly rising. The types of dialysis-membranes and their preparation techniques, and the methods and theories for their modification are summarized. The advantages and disadvantages of cellulose, cellulose acetate (CA), chitosan (CS), polysulfone (PS), poly(ether sulfone) (PES), polyacrylonitrile, ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH), poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) are introduced in detail. With continuously heightened demands for the use of dialysis-membranes, some new ideas for improving the biocompatibility and related physicochemical properties for dialysis-membranes by chemical modification or designing new dialysis-membranes are presented. The results possess some reference value for researching and developing novel dialysis-membranes.