Roberto Benigni's Oscar for best actor marked only the second time that an actor had directed himself in an Academy Award winning performance. The other was Sir Laurence Olivier for Hamlet (1948).
Roberto Benigni says the title comes from a quote by Lev Trotskiy. In exile in Mexico, knowing he was about to be killed by Joseph Stalin's assassins, he saw his wife in the garden and wrote that, in spite of everything, "life is beautiful".
Roberto Benigni was so excited to receive his Academy Award for Best Foreign Film that he stood up in his chair and leaped across several more chairs to get to the stage. Benigni made such a comical impression with his enthusiasm accepting his awards that when he appeared on stage in the next year's Academy Award's ceremony to present the nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the show's host, Billy Crystal, playfully appeared behind him with a large butterfly net, seemingly ready to restrain Benigni if he got silly again.
The screenplay by Roberto Benigni and Vincenzo Cerami was published in Italy in 1998. The published version featured a few more scenes that were not in the final movie, most notably a scene in which Guido inadvertently witnesses a mass execution of Partisans, spotting his friend Ferruccio among them.