Neil Jordan originally intended to title the movie "The Soldier's Wife", but was advised by his friend Stanley Kubrick to change it. Kubrick recommended this change because he believed that films with either religious or military titles usually deterred audiences and were often financial failures (something that Jordan had experienced when his religiously-titled movies The Miracle (1991) and We're No Angels (1989) flopped at the box office). Jordan selected the new title from a 1960s hit British pop song.

A few lines of dialogue allude to Dil as being significantly older than Fergus (more specifically, a remark Dil makes about preferring younger men). Jaye Davidson, who plays Dil, is actually twenty-one years younger than Stephen Rea, who plays Fergus.

Debut theatrical feature film of actor Jaye Davidson, who was Oscar-nominated for his performance.

The film was shot on such a shoestring budget. It actually came very close to running out of funds.

Jaye Davidson was found for the role of Dil while in a bar.

The film cast includes two Oscar winners: Forest Whitaker and Jim Broadbent; and three Oscar nominees: Jaye Davidson, Miranda Richardson and Stephen Rea.

Picked by Entertainment Weekly magazine as one of the "50 Greatest Independent Films" in a special supplement devoted to independent films that was only distributed to subscribers in November 1997.

At the request of Channel 4, who were originally backing the film, Neil Jordan had to write and shoot a different ending for the film, because it was felt that with the original ending the film would be unreleasable. Jordan wrote and filmed this "fake ending" as he refers to it without love or conviction. However, when the film was cut with the fake ending in place, all agreed that it didn't work and the production received the funding to film the ending Jordan had originally written and with which the film was released. The alternative ending is included in the bonus material of some DVD releases.

The fable that Jody (Forest Whitaker) tells Fergus (Stephen Rea) about the Scorpion and the Frog was also told by Orson Welles in his low-budget film noir thriller, Mr. Arkadin (1955).

Producer Stephen Woolley owned a repertory cinema in London called the "Scala"; when there were funding issues with the film Woolley ended up borrowing money from the Scala to keep the production afloat.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

Features the only Oscar nominated performances of Jaye Davidson and Stephen Rea.

Discussed during a conversation in Отец Тед: The Passion of Saint Tibulus (1995), which was about a fictional movie that gained fame after the priests protested it.

While he is being held captive, Jody asks Fergus to "tell me a story, tell me anything." Fergus responds, "When I was a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things." Jody says, "What does that mean?" and Fergus responds, "Nothing." In fact, Fergus is quoting a famous passage from the Bible, in First Corinthians, Chapter 13.

In this movie, Stephen Rea plays a member of the Irish Republican Army. In his actual life, Rea was married for twenty years to Dolours Price, a member of the IRA who participated in a car bombing at London's Old Bailey in 1973. For her part in the bombing, Price was given a life sentence, though she actually only served seven years in prison. Rea and Price were married during the time that Rea filmed The Crying Game; they divorced in 2003 and Price died in 2013. In a posthumously released interview, Price admitted to also playing a role in one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the "troubles" era: the 1972 kidnapping and murder of a Belfast mother of ten named Jean McConville, whose disappearance remained an open mystery until her body was found in 2003.

A few weeks into filming, Jaye Davidson got ill from flu. A doctor was called to the set to take a look at him. The doctor entered Jaye's tiny trailer, examined him and came out to talk to director Neil Jordan. The doctor asked Neil "Have you considered the possibility that she might be pregnant?". To which Neil and the other crew began to laugh. The doctor looked bemused, and was only let in on the secret a few minutes later. He felt very foolish.

The casting of Dil proved extremely difficult for the filmmakers (Stanley Kubrick had at one point warned Neil Jordan the role was probably uncastable) until the casting director (Susie Figgis) received a tip-off from director Derek Jarman about Jaye Davidson. Davidson was later "discovered" by the film's casting agents at a wrap party for Jarman's film Эдвард II (1991), and was offered the opportunity to try out for the role of Dil. Davidson was (by his own admission) very drunk and not particularly enthusiastic (he thought it was just a joke at first) but eventually took the role in order to pay for a pair of hand-made leather riding boots he had seen in a copy of Vogue magazine.

Time magazine critic Richard Corliss subtly gave away the movie's plot twist in his review of the film. The first letter of each paragraph spells out the phrase "She is a he".

The film was turned down by all the studios because they thought "the twist" in the film would turn viewers off; in fact, it became why many went to the movie.

Although producer Stephen Woolley was immediately taken with Neil Jordan's script, he met with zero interest in America. The general consensus was that the Jaye Davidson role was uncastable, the film's mix of sex and terrorism would prove unpalatable with audiences, and that the press would divulge the film's big twist. Eventually Woolley was able to drum up the necessary budget from British, European and Japanese sources, but then had to contend with the financial collapse of his production company, Palace Pictures. When Miramax, who had initially rejected the script, saw the finished product, they immediately made an offer to distribute the film in the USA, with a clause in the contract that they would push the film for Oscar consideration.

The plot twist of this movie was spoofed in a plot twist for Эйс Вентура: Розыск домашних животных (1994).