Phenacyl bromides are used as a building blocks in synthetic organic chemistry, which serves as a key model for the development of various biologically important heterocyclic compounds and other industrially important scaffolds. This review covers recent synthetic advances in the preparation of heterocyclic compounds utilizing various phenacyl bromides. A wide range of five- and six-membered heterocyclic compounds as well as fused heterocyclic compounds were synthesized efficiently from the phenacyl bromide precursors through one-pot multicomponent reactions.