Abstract Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Current clinical techniques that rely on stenosis measurement alone appear to be insufficient for risk prediction in atherosclerosis patients. Many novel imaging methods have been developed to study atherosclerosis progression and to identify new features that can predict future clinical risk. MRI of atherosclerotic vessel walls is one such method. It has the ability to noninvasively evaluate multiple biomarkers of the disease such as luminal stenosis, plaque burden, tissue composition and plaque activity. In addition, the accuracy of in vivo MRI has been validated against histology with high reproducibility, thus paving the way for application to epidemiological studies of disease pathogenesis and, by serial MRI, in monitoring the efficacy of therapeutic intervention. In this review, we describe the various MR techniques used to evaluate aspects of plaque progression, discuss imaging‐based measurements (imaging biomarkers), and also detail their validation. The application of plaque MRI in clinical trials as well as emerging imaging techniques used to evaluate plaque compositional features and biological activities are also discussed. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2010;32:502–515. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.