On account of their intrinsic chemical and spectroscopic properties, luminescent lanthanide molecular materials find potential applications in lighting, optical communications, photonics and biomedical devices. This perspective article summarizes some recent seminal research work on luminescent properties and structural aspects of a series of lanthanide benzoate complexes featuring Eu³⁺ and Tb³⁺ ions. In particular, when modified with light-harvesting moieties, benzoates have proven to be efficient sensitizers for lanthanide ions. The photoluminescence properties of the various lanthanide benzoate coordination compounds have also been correlated with the electronic states of the newly designed antenna molecules.