Classical swine fever (CSF), caused by classical swine fever virus (CSFV), has been epidemic or endemic in many countries, and causes great economical losses to pig industry worldwide. Attenuated vaccines (such as C-strain) have played an important role in the control of CSF. Recently some new phenomena appear, such as atypical and persistent infections of CSF, immunization failure and so on. Meanwhile, eradication programs have been implemented in many countries, restricting the widespread applications of attenuated vaccines. Thus, currently the priority is to strengthen the research in pathogenesis and transmission mechanisms, as well as to develop marker vaccines. Recently, the applications of reverse genetics technology open up a new way for research of structure and function of CSFV proteins and development of novel vaccines against CSF. This review focuses on the progress of applications of reverse genetics in the functional analysis and marker vaccine development of CSFV, and also discusses the problems confronted now and prospective aspects in the study of CSFV.