Chiral inorganic nanomaterials have attracted much attention due to their excellent photophysical properties and wide potential applications. The chiral structure obtained by modifying the surface of inorganic nanomaterials with chiral ligands or assembling inorganic nanomaterials with chiral templates can strongly interact with photons to change the polarization and generate circularly polarized light (CPL). In terms of generation mechanism, CPL mainly includes circularly polarized luminescence and circularly polarized scattering, and in some cases these two mechanisms coexist. This article summarizes the progress of CPL in semiconductor nanomaterials, metal nanoclusters, perovskites, lanthanide complexes and other composite nanomaterials. In addition, the main source of CPL in different chiral inorganic nanomaterials is also discussed. The conclusions drawn in this review are expected to realize regulating the anisotropy factor of CPL active materials at the molecular level and promote their development in various applications such as quantum computing, information encryption, 3D displays, and optical sensing.