An alternative approach to realizing room temperature spintronic applications is introducing spin-polarized carriers in a semiconductor laser, which is beyond the usual magnetoresistive effects. Spin lasers have been widely applied in the fields of secure optical communication, quantum computing, optical information processing, and data storage, reconfigurable optical interconnection, and biomedical sensing because the injection of spin-polarized carriers results in the rich dynamic properties of spin lasers, including high-frequency polarization oscillations and polarization chaos regimes. In this paper, the research progress of the dynamic characteristics and applications of spin lasers in recent years is reviewed. Firstly, the dynamic behavior and chaotic evolution mechanism of spin lasers are introduced. Then the high-frequency polarization oscillation characteristics of spin lasers are analyzed. Furthermore, the latest research progress of applications based on the dynamic characteristics of spin lasers is summarized. Finally, the prospects and challenges of spin lasers are expected to enlighten fundamental researches and engineering applications in the relevant fields.