Nanostructured transition-metal oxides exhibit excellent properties, such as ferromagnetic, ferroelectric, photoluminescence and semiconductive behaviors, etc. The band gap and electronic structure of these oxides can be controlled by size and dimensions; they can also be used in a wide range of applications including microelectronics, energy storage, sensors, and biomedicine due to their tunable chemical and physical properties. Here, we give a comprehensive review of the controllable growth of some typical transition-metal oxide nanostructures (e.g., WOx, FeOx, ZnO, TiO2, VO2, etc.), which can be used to effectively understand the fabrication methods as well as the growth mechanism and inspire their potential applications.