Surgical therapy for Parkinson's disease has a long history beginning in the 1930s with empirical exploration of different brain targets, such as resection of the primary motor cortex or extirpation of the caudate. Recently, there has been a renaissance of functional neurosurgery for the treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease, particularly deep brain stimulation (DBS). To date, DBS of the globus pallidus interna and subthalamic nucleus has been reported to relieve motor symptoms and levodopa-induced dyskinesia in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. DBS also has different advantages over pallidotomy and subthalamotomy, including reversibility, decreased risk of reoperation and decreased morbidity. In addition to well-experienced neurologists and neurosurgeons, a multidisciplinary team approach is fundamental and critical to ensure success in the DBS procedure in individual patients. With the advances in neuroimaging, neurophysiology and localization techniques, it is increasingly likely that there will be more surgical targets in the future that can also improve cardinal features of Parkinson's disease, or even nonmotor manifestations of this condition.