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Abstract Nanocarbons including carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide and particularly graphene have unique properties such as high mechanical strength, thermally stable, highly conducting, high friction stability and lower specific wear rates, which can potentially provide synergically improved performance of advanced engineering materials and technologies for various fields of applications such as automotive, aerospace, and other industrial components. Development of phenolic resin‐based nanocomposites comprised of nanocarbon material remained as a research focus to outperform different properties of conventional material based components. In application, phenolic resin is the most popular binder in frictional components development such as brake pads, brake linings, and clutch facings, particularly used in many of light and medium automotive brake pad applications. Specifically, the present review study aims to provide thorough discussion on the mechanical, tribological, and thermal performances of phenolic resin‐based nanocomposites containing nanocarbon as a property modifier by comparing with the neat phenolic resin or with the composite containing other micro ingredients. As per presented overview, the analysis shows the significant improvement in some required application‐based properties of phenolic resin‐based nanocomposites such as tensile strength, young's modulus, impact strength, specific wear rate reduction, residue yield, and thermal conductivity due to the inclusion of nanocarbon, where the content of nanocarbons ranges about 0.5 wt% to 5 wt%. Hence nanocomposites synthesized using phenolic resin matrix with nanocarbons fillers found to have better mechanical strength, better wear resistance, and thermal stabilities when compared to pure phenolic resin and other composites.