The organocatalytic reduction of CC and CN double bonds with biomimetic reductants, e.g. Hantzsch 1,4-dihydropyridine esters and benzothiazolines, is reviewed. Very high yields and stereoselectivities have been achieved with a variety of catalysts, including chiral amines, thioureas and phosphoric acids, even with loadings equivalent to those of transition metal-catalyzed reactions in some cases. Reductive amination reactions and the dearomatization of heteroaromatic substrates are the subject of more than one half of the contributions. Of lately, methodologies based on kinetic resolution, cascade reactions involving transfer hydrogenation and the development of novel reductants have become prominent in an area which brings great prospects for the future of target oriented-synthesis.

Chiral bifunctional dual H-bond donor catalysts have become one of the pillars of organocatalysis. They include squaramide, thiosquaramide, thiourea, urea, and even selenourea-based catalysts combined with chiral amines, cinchona alkaloids, sulfides, phosphines and more. They can promote several types of reactions affording products in very high yields and excellent stereoselectivities in many cases: conjugate additions, cycloadditions, the aldol and Henry reactions, the Morita–Baylis–Hilman reaction, even cascade reactions, among others. The desire to understand mechanisms and the quest for the origins of stereoselectivity, in attempts to find guidelines for developing more efficient catalysts for new transformations, has promoted many mechanistic and theoretical studies. In this review, we survey the literature published in this area since 2015.