The Nautilaceae comprise six families: Nautilidae, Paracenoceratidae, Pseudonautilidae, Cymatoceratidae, Hercoglossidae, and Aturiidae.

Species in the Nautilaceae are generally smooth and involute with straight to strongly sinuous sutures and a small siphuncle.

The Nautilaceae began in the Late Triassic with Cenoceras, a globular to discoidal genus derived from the Syringonautilidae and possibly from Syringonautilus.

Cenoceras, the earliest member of the Nautilaceae and Nautilidae, is the only nautiloid known to have crossed the upper Triassic boundary and the only one known from the Lower Jurassic.

All six families of the Nautilaceae, except for the Aturiidae (Aturia), are derived from the Cenoceras complex in the Middle Jurassic or from Eutrephoceras which immediately followed.