•Nanoemulsions are a novel form for ophthalmic drug delivery system.•Lipophilic drugs used to treat ocular diseases like glaucoma and dry eye syndrome.•Lipophilic drugs are incorporated in nanoemulsion for optimum bioavailability.•Review on development and characterization of the ophthalmic nanoemulsions. Nanoemulsions formulated for the ocular drug delivery have a good scope in pharmaceutical products due to the transparency at enlarged droplet volume fraction, advanced rate of bioavailability and improved shelf life. They are a part of multiphase colloidal dispersion where a heterogeneous system has fine oil in water or water in oil dispersion in addition with the surfactant and co-surfactant containing droplets within the size range of 20–600 nm and showing a narrow size distribution. This review describes the preparation, characteristics, evaluation and application of nanoemulsions as a drug delivery tool for medication delivery in eyes. The review summarizes in-depth information on the development of ophthalmic nanoemulsions providing sustained release and prolonged therapeutic effect. Various methods comprising of high energy techniques and low energy techniques are discussed in detail. Finally, the techniques for characterization, in-vivo evaluation and applications are deliberated in short.