Nowadays commonly used drugs in the treatment of breast cancer are the taxanes. However, in many cases after their administration, there develops multidrug resistance which reduces the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Taxanes also cause numerous side effects such as neutropenia and neuropathy. Epothilones are a new group of compounds with mechanisms of action similar to taxanes, but with more potent antiproliferative activity. This review presents the chemical structure of epothilones and their mechanism of action. We also characterise several compounds that belong to epothilones: patupilone (epothilone B), ixabepilone (BMS-247550), sagopilone (ZK-EPO) and KOS-862 (epothilone D). There has been carried out extensive research on them. The main advantage of epothilones is their efficacy in cells resistant to taxanes. It seems that this is a group of compounds which in the near future may replace the taxanes in the treatment of various types of cancer.