Philippe Noiret said all of his lines in French, his native language. He was later dubbed in Italian by Vittorio Di Prima. In the French version, Noiret dubbed himself.
The film was shot in Bagheria, Sicily, Giuseppe Tornatore's hometown. The director largely drew on his childhood experiences there as inspiration for the film.
By the end of 1956, Italy had 17,000 movie theaters, the most in Europe.
Giuseppe Tornatore's intention was that this movie should serve as an obituary for traditional movie theatres (like the one on the film) and the movie industry in general. After the movie's success he never mentioned this again.
The love theme in the movie was composed by Andrea Morricone, although his father, Ennio Morricone, who scored the rest of the film, arranged the orchestration of the theme.