Studies on nuclear fission and its properties are still a challenge both theoretically and experimentally. Among the most studied physical observables, the mass and charge distributions of nuclei produced in fission, the so-called fission fragments, play a key role. First, these distributions allow us to understand how the large number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) of the fissioning nucleus are shared between the two fragments that are formed during fission. The understanding of the process requires a very broad experimental knowledge of the properties of the fission fragments, and this for a large number of fissioning systems and in very wide energy range. It is within this framework that an experimental program for measuring the fission fragment distributions of several actinides has been conducted at facilities as diverse as the Lohengrin spectrometer at ILL (Grenoble) in the thermal domain and using the VAMOS spectrometer at GANIL (Caen) in inverse kinematics at higher energy. These measures have made it possible to explore regions of mass still poorly known, which has necessitated the development of innovative experimental techniques, in particular through the use of gamma spectrometry. The experience acquired in these experimental developments has also made it possible to develop new instruments such as the FALSTAFF spectrometer which will be used, among others, with the NSF installation of SPIRAL2 at GANIL or, in a more exotic application, the FIDIAS TPC. The interpretation of the many experimental data available on fission fragment distributions makes use to different theoretical approaches. A theoretical approach that has been the subject of many developments is the statistical model of scission point. A new and original version of this model, called SPY and which uses a very advanced description of the microscopic properties of the nuclei, made it possible to derive the distributions of fission fragments in unexplored regions. This approach allowed, among other things, to shed interesting light on the role of the microscopic structure of fragments in the asymmetric fission of relatively light elements such as Mercury, as well as to propose an original interpretation on the role of fission of rare earth elements in explosive nucleosynthesis.