Traditionally neutron scattering has been an important tool for studying bulk magnetic materials. The success has been due to the high sensitivity of neutrons for magnetic moments, combined with their characteristics in relationship to wavelength and velocity. As the interest of the scientific community has shifted towards nanostructured materials, polarized neutron reflectivity (PNR) and scattering at grazing incidence have emerged as powerful methods for studying magnetic thin films. As will be illustrated by the presentation of several experiments, the depth dependent magnitude and orientation of the magnetization in a thin film can be determined with PNR. In the case of GaMnAs thin films knowledge about the magnitude of the magnetization provided understanding about the effect of temperature annealing in these films. Determination of the orientation of the magnetization of individual Fe layers in Fe/Cr[110] superlattices as was essential to the understanding of the magnetic coupling between the Fe layers spaced by Cr. Finally, PNR experiments performed with polarization analysis mapped out the evolution of individual magnetization vectors during the first order spin flop transition in a finite antiferromagnet, thereby confirming theoretical predictions about this magnetic phase transition.