Rice is the largest crop food in China， possessing a principal strategic position in agricultural production. With the rapid growth of population and the acceleration of urbanization process， the limited yield increase makes rice production is facing severe challenges. Breeding high-yield rice varieties is of great significance to ensure food security and realize sustainable agricultural development. The ideal plant architecture is a considerable strategy of variety improvement and directly affects rice yield. The tiller angle， which affects rice yield by regulating the light energy utilization efficiency of the population， is a core element of plant architecture characteristics. The production practice shows that the varieties with reasonable tiller angle show better lodging resistance and stable yield potential. With the rapid development of functional genomics， researchers have made many important progresses in mining of the rice tiller angle regulatory genes and the molecular mechanism analysis in recent years. In this review， we systematically summarized the functional genes and genetic metabolic networks regulating rice tiller angle. And then， the domestication process and the genetic mechanism of gravitropism in regulating rice tiller angle were mainly elucidated， as well as the regulation mechanism of plant hormones and environmental factors. Even further， we prospected the potential further research directions under the existing theoretical framework. The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical reference for the genetic improvement and molecular design breeding of high-yield and ideal plant architecture varieties.