In this survey, we gather together various results on the action of a real form G0 of a complex semisimple group G on its flag manifolds. We start with the finiteness theorem of J. Wolf implying that at least one of the G0-orbits is open. We give a new proof of the converse statement for real forms of inner type, essentially due to F.M. Malyshev. Namely, if a real form of inner type G0 ⊂ G has an open orbit on a complex algebraic homogeneous space G/H then H is parabolic. In order to prove this, we recall, partly with proofs, some results of A.L. Onishchik on the factorizations of reductive groups. Finally, we discuss the cycle spaces of open G0-orbits and define the crown of a symmetric space of noncompact type. With some exceptions, the cycle space agrees with the crown. We sketch a complex analytic proof of this result, due to G. Fels, A. Huckleberry and J. Wolf. real form G0 acting locally transitively on an affine homogeneous space G/H is either SO1,7 or SO3,5. Moreover, in that case G/H = SO8/Spin7 and the action of G0 is in fact transitive (Corollary 4.7). This very special homogeneous space of a complex group G has on open orbit of a real form G0, the situation being typical for flag manifolds. One can ask what homogeneous spaces share this property. It turns out that if a real form of inner type G0 ⊂ G has an open orbit on a homogeneous space G/H with H algebraic, then H is in fact parabolic and so G/H is a flag manifold. We prove this in Section 5 (see Corollary 5.2) and then retrieve the result of F.M. Malyshev of the same type in which the isotropy subgroup is not necessarily algebraic (Theorem 5.4). It should be noted that, the other way around, the statement for algebraic homogeneous spaces can be deduced from his theorem. Our proof of both results is new.