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Film cooling represents one of the few game-changing technologies that has allowed the achievement of today’s high firing temperature, high-efficiency gas turbine engines. Over the last 30 years, only one major advancement has been realized in this technology, that being the incorporation of exit shaping to the film holes to result in lower momentum coolant injection jets with greater surface coverage. This review examines the origins of shaped film cooling and summarizes the extant literature knowledge concerning the performance of such film holes. A catalog of the current literature data is presented, showing the basic shaping geometries, parameter ranges, and types of data obtained. Specific discussions are provided for the flow field and aerodynamic losses of shaped film hole coolant injection. The major fundamental effects due to coolant-to-gas blowing ratio, compound angle injection, cooling hole entry flow character, and mainstream turbulence intensity are each reviewed with respect to the resulting adiabatic film effectiveness and heat transfer coefficients for shaped holes. A specific example of shaped film effectiveness is provided for a production turbine inlet vane with comparison to other data. Several recent unconventional forms of film hole shaping are also presented as a look to future potential improvements.