Efficiency and durability of Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) relies on different interacting and coupling factors. The comfort temperature level with good homogeneity is one of the prominent factor, which significantly affects the stack-level and even on-board integrated systems confronted with frequent load changes. Featured with low-grade reaction heat generation (60~80 °C) and high proportion (~50%) accounting for entire yield, liquid-cooling PEMFC stack considerably relies on the construction of thermal management scheme to achieve temperature dynamic heat balance. Similarly, to further improves the electrical efficiency and lifetime, coordinate operation of thermal management BOP components is expected to be fully activated by advanced control-oriented strategy with modeling algorithm. Hence, this review focus on the current status, challenges and future perspectives on extensive potentials for liquid-cooling thermal management system (TMS) in PEMFCs. Firstly, the fundamental temperature control configurations with dual-control targets are introduced, followed by the viewpoint of structure-based as well as material-based, i.e., the effects of cooling channel design (such as parallel, serpentine and wave flow field) and novel coolant adoption (including single metal particles nanofluids and hybrid particles-based nanofluids) upon stack temperature profile and heat transfer performance are reported in detail. Then, the current situation of primary thermal management schemes is supported with classic proportional-integral-differential (PID) feedback control strategy and analyzed to address the necessity of decoupling the temperature parameters to improve the dynamic response for the high-power PEMFC stack. Furthermore, novel control strategies with emerging modeling algorithms (like model reference adaptive control, sliding mode control), oriented for comfort temperature grade, the robust response against varying loads and high efficiency with lower parasitic power, are discussed to evaluate the feasibility and practicality for TMS further integrated into overall energy management architecture of PEMFC system. Finally, in conclusion and perspective, it is appreciated for advanced thermal control strategy to promote single passive temperature control towards proactive thermal management implementation, which is promising and beneficial to identify its substantial potential of low-grade heat recovery and utilization for on-board PEMFC system.