Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) have achieved remarkable success in the treatment of hematological cancers, but little progress in solid tumors. Meanwhile, innate immune cells-based tumor immunotherapy has been scarcely developed. Macrophages detect and clear malignant cells through phagocytosis and innate immune sensing, thus being potential targets for cancer immunotherapy. Promising evidence from preclinical studies have shown chimeric antigen receptor macrophages (CAR-M) as an effective therapeutic strategy in solid tumors. This review sketches the prospect of CAR-immune cell therapeutics and emphasizes current status and perspective of CAR-M cell therapy trials and limitations associated with CAR-M. We also describe CAR-M can be manufactured from pre-existing cell lines or induced pluripotent stem cells, while transfection vectors for CAR-M show different characteristics, highlighting CAR-M as a next-generation therapeutic modality linking the closely intertwined innate and adaptive immunity to induce efficacious anti-tumor immune responses.