α-Amino acid and peptide derivatives are important in synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry, which attract many chemists to develop new methods for their synthesis. Palladium-catalyzed sp³ C–H activation/functionalization has been developed greatly for the modification of α-amino acids and peptides. This review introduces palladium-catalyzed sp³ C–H activation/functionalization of amino acids and peptides. The content includes intermolecular functionalization (arylation, alkylation, alkenylation, alkynylation, acetoxylation, fluorination, silylation, borylation, sulfonylation, chalcogenation and carbonylative cyclization) and intramolecular functionalization (intramolecular C–N bond-forming cyclization and peptide macrocyclization).