Some recent advances in stability and optimality for the nonlinear receding horizon control (NRHC) or the nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) are assessed. The NRHCs with terminal conditions are surveyed in terms of a terminal state equality constraint, a terminal cost, and a terminal constraint set. Other NRHCs without terminal conditions are surveyed in terms of a control Lyapunov function (CLF) and cost monotonicity. Additional approaches such as output feedback, fuzzy, and neural network are introduced. This paper excludes the results for linear receding horizon controls and concentrates only on the analytical results of NRHCs, not including applications of NRHCs. Stability and optimality are focused on rather than robustness.