The focus of this review is the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by gas chromatography (GC) in the field of environmental, food, flavour and fragrance, medical and forensic sciences. New trends in sample injection, separation and detection are covered, including multi-dimensional and high-speed GC. Attention is drawn to a growing interest in quality assessment. From the review, it is clear that it remains a challenge to generate multi-component gaseous standards of VOCs at ppbv and pptv.