Monocotyledonous crops including cereals, sugar cane, banana and cassava make an important tribute to agricultural commodities both in production and value worldwide. Diseases caused by nematodes in monocots are well documented and new data are emerging on interactions of these pathogens with some important monocotyledonous crop species. This review focuses on major monocotyledonous plant–nematode systems describing the biology and genetics of some interactions and highlighting efforts to identify and select resistant genetic resources. Molecular and histological data are presented having in the spotlight sedentary nematodes of the suborder Tylenchina. Histological observations are presented during nematode development and host resistance responses, comparing monocot and dicot plant hosts. Subsequently we focus on the recently published transcriptomics of monocotyledonous plant responses looking at specific metabolic changes and their role during plant–nematode interactions. Insights that may be learned from nematode interactions with dicotyledonous hosts are also discussed. As a final point, we look at nematode effectors during monocots–nematode interactions exploiting de novo transcriptome data produced from root-knot nematodes and cyst nematodes.