Embodiments of the present invention provide an application display method and a terminal, where the method includes: acquiring a first flicking gesture, where a start position of the first flicking gesture is located in a first preset operating area; and when the terminal detects that the first flicking gesture is a first preset flicking gesture, displaying an application that is in a first state, where the first state includes at least one of the following states: a state of running in the foreground, a state of running in the background, and a state of being buffered in the background. Therefore, a recently used application can be displayed to a user according to a gesture of the user, without a need to dispose a dedicated button, thereby improving operation and control efficiency.