In this paper, we present the nonlinear dynamic behaviors of the higher-order rogue wave solutions to the (2+1)-dimensional Fokas–Lenells equation. The (1+1)-dimensional Fokas–Lenells equation is generalized to the (2+1)-dimensional Fokas–Lenells one via the Lax pair approach. Moreover, infinitely many conservation laws and the determinant of n-fold generalized Darboux transformation are derived for the (2+1)-dimensional Fokas–Lenells equation. The modulation instability is also analyzed based on the theory of standard linear-stability. In addition, we obtain the higher-order rogue wave solutions of the (2+1)-dimensional Fokas–Lenells equation by the generalized Darboux transformation from an exponential seed solution. Furthermore, we plot the graph of rogue wave solutions and discuss in detail the variation of the rogue wave solutions with different parameters, which show interesting structures including triangles and pentagons.