The physics related to the form factors of the energy–momentum tensor spans a wide spectrum of problems, and includes gravitational physics, hard-exclusive reactions, hadronic decays of heavy quarkonia, and the physics of exotic hadrons described as hadroquarkonia. It also provides access to the “last global unknown property:” the D-term. We review the physics associated with the form factors of the energy–momentum tensor and the D-term, their interpretations in terms of mechanical properties, their applications, and the current experimental status.