Recent progress in the design of low-melting liquid-crystalline metal complexes (metallomesogens) has facilitated the study of the photophysical properties of these compounds in the mesophase. Luminescence in the liquid crystal state has been observed for metallomesogens incorporating lanthanide(III), gold(I), silver(I), copper(I) or zinc(II) ions. An alternative approach to liquid-crystalline metal-containing systems is doping a metal complex in a liquid-crystal host. A fascinating property of these materials is the ability to observe linearly polarized emission.