Jadomycins are anticancer antibiotics isolated from Streptomyces venezuelae. The core of these natural products consists of a dihydro-phenanthridine ring-system. Another unique feature built to the core is a fused 1,3-oxazolidine-5-one ring. Recent synthetic reports suggest a structural revision of the fused oxazolidinone ring in jadomycin S and jadomycin T. This review will focus on the synthetic efforts leading to the structural revision, and the semisynthetic approaches to generate new jadomycin analogs and their biological activity.