Over the last several years, cardiovascular MRI has benefited from a number of technical advances which have improved routine clinical imaging techniques. As a result, MRI is now well positioned to realize its longstanding promise of becoming the comprehensive cardiac imaging test of choice in many clinical settings. This may be achieved using a combination of basic advanced techniques. In this overview, the basic cardiac MRI techniques which are clinically useful are reviewed, and the recent technical advances which are clinically promising are described. These advances include routine black blood and cine bright blood techniques that are high speed (slice), multislice whole heart perfusion imaging methods, and recently emerging real-time imaging methodologies. J Magn. Reson. Imaging 1999;10:590–601. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.