<p>For many years, petroleum-derived, inexpensive, versatile, and single-use plastics, which are highly stable in the environment, have dominated the packaging market. The widespread use of these non-biodegradable plastics generates plastic waste that severely pollutes both land and ocean environment. Therefore, increasing environmental concerns, combined with the consumer demand for safer, healthier, and high-quality food, have necessitated the development of biodegradable plastic-based barrier, active, and intelligent packaging. Biodegradable plastics offer numerous advantages including biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity, and structural flexibility. Biodegradable plastic exhibited strong barrier properties against oxygen, water, grease, and microbes when used alone or in composites/multilayers. This review provides an overview of enhanced barrier, active, and intelligent packaging. It also highlights the potential utilization of biodegradable plastics, such as polylactic acid, polyhydroxyalkanoates, polybutylene adipate terephthalate, polycaprolactone, polybutylene succinate, thermoplastic starch, and polyvinyl alcohol, for barrier, active, and intelligent packaging. In addition, recent advancements in fabrication techniques that convert biodegradable materials into valuable final products for high-value applications are described in detail. The biodegradable plastic market, its environmental impact, and assessments are discussed as well. This review can help food and packaging scientists to achieve a better understanding of the advantages of utilizing biodegradable plastics in food packaging applications, thereby facilitating their commercialization.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>