Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes the majority of primary liver cancer cases. The Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) was introduced to standardize the lexicon, acquisition, interpretation, reporting, and data collection of imaging results in patients at increased risk for HCC. LI-RADS allows effective categorization of focal liver lesions, and has been applied in the full clinical spectrum of HCC from diagnosis, biological behavior characterization, prognosis prediction, to treatment response assessment. This review aimed to summarize the recent applications of CT/MRI LI-RADS in the diagnosis, biological behavior characterization and prognosis prediction of HCC, discuss current challenges and shed light on potential future directions.