Globalization has led academics to realize the value of broadening classrooms beyond the typical school atmosphere to a place where students can engage in cross-cultural interaction. Despite being discussed in academic literature since the nineteenth century, international student mobility (ISM) did not become prominent until 2003. However, it has emerged as a global phenomenon throughout the last few decades. The present research aims to illustrate the broad patterns and developments in the relevant literature during the past six decades of ISM research. This review is a hybrid form of systematic literature review as it employs a dual approach to address its research questions, i.e., bibliometric and thematic analysis. The present study analysed 1,497 ISM article publications in 867 Scopus-indexed journals from 1964 to 2023. In doing this, the ‘Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews’ (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol is followed. The findings present a retrospective description of the ISM literature by spotting the key contributors in authorship, articles, journals and countries alongside the past, present and future research patterns. Although the field is not completely novel, surprisingly, the bibliometric analysis technique has not been efficiently used in past ISM studies. By addressing the gaps found in the few past reviews, this article thoroughly describes ISM’s knowledge foundation, production and future direction.