With the continuous improvement of the requirements for the power of lithium-ion batteries in electrical vehicles, high-performance lithium-ion batteries are becoming the focus of researchers. As one of the critical components in lithium-ion batteries, membranes play the role of separating the anode and cathode materials and providing the channels for lithium ions to translate. In addition, the thermal stability of membranes can affect the safety of batteries directly. Polyolefin microporous membranes are widely used in lithium batteries for their excellent chemical stability, high mechanical strengths and low cost. However, the poor thermal stability and wettability bring great hidden danger to the wide application of high-performance lithium-ion batteries. As a result, starting from the surface modification of polyolefin microporous membranes, the paper introduces the research progress of polyolefin microporous membranes which are based on polymer surface modification and inorganic nanoparticles, organic-inorganic composites. When introducing the polyolefin microporous membranes based on inorganic nanoparticles, the paper makes a brief introduction to those advanced surface modification methods such as atomic deposition, the chemical vapor deposition method and the physical vapor deposition method. Subsequently, based on the shortcomings of polyolefin, the research progress of other polymer microporous membranes are introduced with respect to the wet process, the phase inversion method, the breath figure method, electrospinning and the in-situ polymerization. At last, the paper makes an outlook for the future researches of high-performance membranes and means to provide a reference for the research and application of high-performance membranes in lithium-ion secondary battery membranes.