Starting from the superhydrophobic theory, the importance of material surface roughness and solid-liquid contact area for the preparation of superhydrophobic surface based on three typical basic wettability models is revealed in this paper. On this basis, the advantages and disadvantages of direct laser writing (DLW), direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) and laser induced periodic surface structure (LIPSS) methods are reviewed. Among them, high-energy-density laser pulses are used to ablate the surface of materials in DLW method and it can construct any three-dimensional structure on the surface of various materials because of its high degree of freedom, but its surface processing accuracy is poor, and it is difficult to build multi-level structure. DLIP method removes the surface material selectively with the interference patterns formed by multiple coherent lasers such that a finer periodic, three-dimensional, and micro-nano hierarchical structures can be directly defined on substrates. LIPSS method can obtain a large number of ripple structures with spatial period of hundreds of nanometers on the surface of materials, but the corresponding processing time will be longer. Finally, different fabrication methods of superhydrophobic surface are summarized from the aspects of preparation parameters, surface structures and morphologies, and hydrophobic properties. In addition, the research status and development direction of these methods are analyzed and discussed.