The Casimir effect is a crucial prediction of Quantum Field Theory which has fascinating connections with open questions in fundamental physics. The ideal formula written by Casimir does not describe real experiments and it has to be generalized by taking into account the effects of imperfect reflection, thermal fluctuations, geometry as well as the corrections coming from surface physics. We discuss these developments in Casimir physics and give the current status in the comparison between theory and experiment after years of improvements in measurements as well as theory.