KAWA lecture notes on the K\"ahler-Ricci flow

These lecture notes are based on a mini-course given by the author at the sixth KAWA Winter School on March 23-26, 2015 at the Centro De Giorgi of Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. They provide an introduction to the study of the Kahler-Ricci flow on compact Kahler manifolds, and a detailed exposition of some recent developments.