Stanley Kubrick purchased the film rights to Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel Paths of Glory for ten thousand dollars. The book itself drew from a real historical event known as the Souain corporals affair, where four French soldiers were executed in 1915 during World War I under General Géraud Réveilhac.
The production took place entirely in Bavaria, Germany, specifically at Schleissheim Palace near Munich. No studio would allow filming in France because of the negative depiction of the French military and United Artists agreed to back the project with Kirk Douglas as the star after MGM rejected the idea based on fears regarding European distributors.
France placed enormous pressure on United Artists not to release the film there due to active and retired personnel from the French military criticizing it. The film eventually appeared in France in 1975 when anti-war attitudes became more acceptable.
The film had its world premiere in Munich, Germany on the 1st of November 1957. It was not officially released nationwide in the United States until January 1958.
In 1992 the Library of Congress deemed the film culturally historically or aesthetically significant and selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.