Objective: to carry out a literature review to characterize the production in the Nursing area about the use of movies and videos in Nursing education, related to underlying communication assumptions and contents taught. Method: integrative bibliographic review carried out in the PUBMED databases, CAPES journal portal, and SCIELO online library, with studies from 2007 to 2016. Results: 36 articles were included, in which audiovisual resources are part of the research subject. There are predominance of validation and effectiveness studies, in which audiovisual resources are used mostly as a reproduction of reality, mainly to develop clinical skills, with the purpose of illustrating procedures or bringing students closer to real contexts of action. Final considerations: the results point to a weak theoretical support of most of the studies. It is suggested that more empirical research be conducted to offer more consistent contributions to Nursing teaching.