The film's director Alan J. Pakula described the picture as "sort of an American myth based on some things that have happened, some fantasies we may have had of what might have happened, and a lot of fears a lot of us have had . . . The Parallax View was a whole other kind of filmmaking for me".
At the suggestion of actor Warren Beatty and screenwriter David Giler, the profession of Beatty's character of Joseph Frady was changed from a police officer to a newspaper journalist.
A parallax refers to the difference in perspective of an object when seen from different view points. An example would be how two people standing some distance apart would have a different view of the same tree. The idea of looking at the same issue with different view points is a recurring theme of this movie.
Warren Beatty campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Kennedy's assassination was an inspiration for this story.
This was Warren Beatty's first film in approximately three years, since $ (1971). In between, Beatty had been raising money and campaigning on behalf of George McGovern's unsuccessful presidential run.