Abstract: Nickel carbide films have attracted extensive attention due to their unique properties, such as good catalytic activity, low resistivity, and high hardness. Moreover nickel carbide can be an ideal intermediate for graphene preparation. Nickel carbide films prepared by physical vapor deposition technology are mostly composite structure films with nanocrystals embedded in a carbon matrix. However, the films deposited by the chemical vapor deposition technique are homogeneous structures with low resistivity and good electrocatalytic activity. In addition,nickel carbides play an important role in the formation of high-quality graphene since they can be used as the carbon source. In this paper, the preparation methods of nickel carbides are reviewed, including physical sputtering,chemical vapor deposition and atomic layer deposition technology. The effect of the nickel carbide intermediate phase on the formation of graphene has also been summarized.