[en] A review is presented of recent experimental and theoretical progress in studies of the production of massive lepton pairs in hadronic collisions. I begin with the classical Drell-Yan annihilation model and its predictions. Subsequently, I discuss deviations from scaling, the status of the proofs of factorization in the parton model, higher-order terms in the perturbative QCD expansion, the discrepancy between measured and predicted yields (K factor), high-twist terms, soft gluon effects, transverse-momentum distributions, implications for weak vector boson (W^+- and Z₀) yields and production properties, nuclear A dependence effects, correlations of the lepton pair with hadrons in the final state, and angular distributions in the lepton-pair rest frame