Trivia: John Cusack's real-life sister, Joan Cusack, is wearing a neck brace on the bus at the beginning of the film.
Trivia: Most of Prince's dance moves are his own personal tribute to the "Godfather Of Soul" James Brown.
Trivia: The film's soundtrack album knocked Michael Jackson's "Thriller" off the top of the U.S. album charts, where it had ranked for more than a year.
Trivia: The producers purposely went with relatively unknown actors for the film, because they thought they'd be more believable than stars who people already identified in different roles.
Trivia: Was the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time for nearly twenty years until "The Matrix Reloaded" upseated it on June 3, 2003. In the history of R-rated films, it held the longest record for high grosser (19 years).
Trivia: Haing S. Ngor and Dith Pran actually met up in real life and even visited the old country - Vietnam - together before Haing's death.
Trivia: Geraldine Page was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Mrs Ritter, even though she had only eight minutes of screen time.
Trivia: In the first Western release, the movie was - for some unknown reason - dubbed "Warriors of the Wind", and the script underwent several (partially unreasonable) changes. Even some of the scenes where the more peace-seeking aspects were approached - like Nausicaä trying to raise non-poisonous plants in order to find the cause of the world's pollution - were simply cut out. Creator and director Miyazaki has since appealed to the fans to forget about this Western version.
Trivia: In the final scene, when Winston and Julia are playing chess, Winston uses a tactic of going around and hitting from behind. Only minutes later, the news report that Oceanarian forcer defeated Eurasian forces in Africa by using the same tactic. Nothing major but it makes a good point about the rate of citizen monitoring and news manipulation in Oceanaria.
Trivia: Robin Williams studied the Russian language, its customs, and even the saxophone for the role.
Trivia: The Grand National sequence towards the end of the film combines filmed footage with real footage of the 1983 Grand National.
Trivia: Ralph Richardson, who played the Sixth Earl of Greystoke, died shortly after filming had ended, and he received a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film was dedicated to his memory.
Trivia: Actress Sally Field is yet remembered and sometimes mocked for her 1985 Academy Award speech that included the gushing line: "You like me! You really like me!" Problem is, that's a misquote, she didn't say that line. When accepting the Best Actress Oscar for "Places in the Heart," Sally Field actually said: "I can't deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me." So why does everyone remember the misquote? It's because Jim Carrey satirized Sally Field's award speech for his 1994 movie, "The Mask," in which he originated the misquote: "You like me! You really like me!"
Trivia: During filming, the relationship between Alec Guinness and David Lean deteriorated. The final straw came for Guinness when he realised that a large chunk of his scenes had been left on the cutting floor by Lean. After filming was complete, the two never met or spoke to each other again.