The BMW 3 Series is a line of compact executive carsmanufactured by the German automaker BMW since May 1975. It is the successor to the 02 Series and has been produced in seven generations.

The 3 Series has been on Car and Driver magazine's annual 10 Best list 22 times, from 1992 through 2014, making it the longest-running entry in the list.[29] In their December 2009 issue, Grassroots Motorsportsmagazine named the BMW 3 Series as the second-most important performance car built during the previous 25 years. In January 2021, the BMW 330e M Sport (M Sport Pro Package) was named Executive Car of the Year by What Car? magazine.[30]What Car? awarded the 3 Series five stars out of five in its review of the car.[31]

The plug-in hybrid version of the car was the UK's best-selling plug-in hybrid car of 2021 having achieved 10,979 new registrations throughout the year, beating the Mercedes A-Class by over 4,000 registrations.[32]