National Basic Research Program of China [2010CB732303, CB2013CB933102]; Program for Innovation Research Team in Chinese Universities [IRT1036]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [21373170, 21033006] ; Oxidation catalysis not only plays a crucial role in the current chemical industry for the production of key intermediates such as alcohols, epoxides, aldehydes, ketones and organic acids, but also will contribute to the establishment of novel green and sustainable chemical processes. This review is devoted to dealing with selective oxidation reactions, which are important from the viewpoint of green and sustainable chemistry and still remain challenging. Actually, some well-known highly challenging chemical reactions involve selective oxidation reactions, such as the selective oxidation of methane by oxygen. On the other hand some important oxidation reactions, such as the aerobic oxidation of alcohols in the liquid phase and the preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide in hydrogen, have attracted much attention in recent years because of their high significance in green or energy chemistry. This article summarizes recent advances in the development of new catalytic materials or novel catalytic systems for these challenging oxidation reactions. A deep scientific understanding of the mechanisms, active species and active structures for these systems are also discussed. Furthermore, connections among these distinct catalytic oxidation systems are highlighted, to gain insight for the breakthrough in rational design of efficient catalytic systems for challenging oxidation reactions.