Dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans, such as schizandrin, gomisin are a kind of important natural product with signifi- cant biological activities, especially for liver disease. Several total synthetic strategies had been investigated and succeed in the application of oxidative coupling reagents including intramolecular and intermolecular coupling such as TlTFA, RuTFA, Fe(ClO4)3, MoCl5, and PhI(OAc)2 etc. These applications of various aryl-aryl oxidative coupling reagents for the synthesis of dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans published in recent 20 years are reviewed, together with author's experience in this area. Fi- nally, the new synthetic hypothesis through the connection between biphenyl aryl piece and aliphatic piece is proposed. Keywords dibenzocyclooctadiene; lignans; aryl-aryl oxidative coupling; natural product; Schisandraceae; total synthesis