Thanks to significant advancements in adaptive optics combined with coronagraphic observational strategies, high-contrast imaging techniques are rapidly progressing. The exploration of the sub-stellar regime via direct imaging, hampered so far by technical limitations, is starting to provide us with a powerful tool. SPHERE at VLT, combining extreme adaptive optics with coronagraphy, dual-band imaging and integral field spectroscopy, has started its operations: relatively massive exoplanets at few tenths of arcsecond separations and contrasts better than 10^6 can be reached.In this contribution I will present recent results obtained with SPHERE in the framework of the SHINE survey. Moreover, I will present a new system for coronagraphy with high-order adaptive optics that will be operating at LBT by the end of 2019: SHARKs. This system will provide coronagraphic observations from visual to NIR bands, allowing a spectral coverage that is not currently available for any other instrument in the world. Finally, I will discuss the employment of a brand-new technique that combines high-contrast imaging with high-dispersion spectroscopy, allowing in principle to reach contrasts down to 10^10. In the era of ELTs, this will open the way to investigating earth-like planets in the habitable zones of their parent stars.