alpha-Amino carbonyl compounds are an important class of nitrogen-containing substances. This review highlights their synthesis using various strategies and considers mechanisms of the processes. The strategies are classified into subcategories based on the type of starting materials, chemical reactions and synthetic methods in use. In the literature survey, different types of reactions are discussed like oxidation, reduction, addition, coupling, C-H amination, oxidative cleavage and rearrangement, amidation, multicomponent cascade reaction, etc., for the synthesis of these compounds. The bibliography includes 100 references.