Carbon-based emitters (CBEs) hold promise for display technology due to their abundance, flexibility, tunable photoluminescence (PL), and environmental friendliness. However, uncontrolled vibronic coupling in CBEs often results in inferior-color-purity emissions, posing a significant challenge in realizing the Rec. 2020 standard. This review offers an overview of narrow-bandwidth emissive CBEs including small molecules, polymers, and carbon dots (CDs). We focus primarily on the relationship between molecular structure and optical properties, ranging from their aromatic conjugated skeletons to functional groups. We also delve into the key challenges and potential prospects in this field. It is hoped that this review will inspire more elaborate structure design of narrow-bandwidth emissive CBEs from a fresh perspective and facilitate the practical application of CBE-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in wide-color-gamut display technology.