Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the main causes of death in China. Recently, the patients diagnosed with early GC has increased year by year. However, drug resistance has seriously limited the effects of surgery and chemotherapy. Therefore, it is urgent to explore new therapeutic targets for GC. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent programmed cell death, and it is characterized by intracellular lipid peroxidation. GC cells are very sensitive to the level of intracellular iron metabolism. Ferroptosis plays an important role in the development, progression, treatment and drug resistance of GC. Ferroptosis-related genes and non-coding RNAs in GC cells are closely related to metastasis, drug resistance and prognosis of GC. In recent years, research on the regulatory effect of ferroptosis on the proliferation of GC cells has made some progress, and targeted ferroptosis may be an effective treatment for GC. This article describes the role of ferroptosis in the proliferation, invasion, metastasis and drug resistance of GC cells, summarizes the target genes related to ferroptosis, and prospects the application of targeted regulation of ferroptosis in the treatment of GC.