In 2014, more than 80% of the marketed drugs in the US contained heterocyclic compounds, which play a major role in the drug-discovery process, as one of the primary components. Benzoxazole, consisting of an oxazole ring fused with a benzene ring, has shown profound impact in drug discovery research owing to its important bioactivity. This moiety has also shown important properties in material science. The synthesis of this privileged scaffold from readily available chemicals remains a primary focus for the synthetic chemistry community. In this review, efforts have been made to focus on the latest information available on the different synthetic strategies such as solution phase, multicomponent, green and solid phase chemistry and applications of different benzoxazole derivatives. Furthermore, the updated synthetic information incorporated in this review article will help to improve future synthesis of this scaffold.