Based on detailed field observations and measurements of fault geometry, kinematics and activity phases along the southwestern boundary zone, the central W-E fault zone, the eastern boundary zone and the northeastern area of the Ordos Basin, and according to striation superimposition relationship on fault plane and regional tectonic events, this paper established late Mesozoic stress directions, stress regimes and their evolution sequence, and proposed a 4-stage tectonic evolution model with tectonic stress regimes changed alternately between extension and compression. The Basin was under extensional stress environment during the Early-Middle Jurassic, with the extension oriented in N-S to NNE-SSW. The tectonic stress regime had changed to multi-directional (W-E, NW-SE, NE-SW) compression during the period from the latest Middle Jurassic to late Jurassic and the peripheral zones of the Ordos Basin submitted to multi-directional shortening deformation. The stress regime changed again to extension during the Early Cretaceous, with the orientations of extension being NW-SE, W-E and NE-SW. It is followed from the latest Early Cretaceous to late Cretaceous by NW-SE compression. The stress field evolution and the changes in stress regimes in the peripheral zones of the Ordos Basin during the late Mesozoic not only recorded far-field effects produced by different inter-plate convergences, but also reflected changes in deep-seated thermal-tectonic regimes beneath the Ordos Basin, which caused the proto basin to have been significantly reformed.