The foliations theory has played an important role in three-manifold theory. In particular, Thurston's study of mapping tori is one of the most important parts of geometric topology. He attempted to generalize the results to the case of tautly foliated three-manifolds. As a first step, He proved the universal circle theorem. In this talk, I will provide the context of the study of taut foliations and introduce Thurston's Universal Circle Theorem. Finally, I will discuss laminar groups and recent results. This talk is based on works with Harry Hyungryul baik and Hongtaek Jung.