<p>This review paper provides an overview of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and their operational context, aiming to create foundational knowledge and motivate research. The importance of motion control in AUV research and technology is highlighted. To improve knowledge in this area, a review of AUV motion control which is utilized in numerous underwater tasks was carried out. Peer-reviewed articles from reputable journals published in the past ten years are included in the evaluation, along with foundational works from the preceding 3 decades. The report evaluates important areas of technical research and offers important forecasts for future developments. In order to handle the challenges of the undersea environment, the study examines various control systems in maritime applications, including traditional, advanced, intelligent, and machine learning-based control. Our contribution comprises highlighting current and ongoing research. While the literature review is brief, it focuses on sources that are directly relevant to the innovative results presented over the last decade. This review article presents key findings from a systematic search of the literature on AUV motion control. To highlight the uniqueness of the proposed work, a comparative summary is tabulated against the existing review paper. Finally, based on the reviewed literature, potential research gaps are identified, and future approaches are proposed for further development in this critical topic.</p>