Abstract. This article reviews the recent theoretical and experimental advances in the study of ultracold gases made of bosonic particles interacting via the longrange, anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction, in addition to the short-range and isotropic contact interaction usually at work in ultracold gases. The specific properties emerging from the dipolar interaction are emphasized, from the meanfield regime valid for dilute Bose-Einstein condensates, to the strongly correlated regimes reached for dipolar bosons in optical lattices.