Director Ezra Edelman struggled on the decision to include the forensic photos of the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, but ultimately decided to edit them in to remind the audience that the trial was meant to be about a horrific double homicide instead of the discussion about race and corrupt law enforcement that it ultimately progressed into.
At 467 minutes, this is the longest film nominated for an Academy Award, breaking the record held by Guerra e Paz (1965), by 31 minutes.
A few months after its Oscar win as Best Documentary, the Academy specifically outlawed "multi-part or limited series" to be included as nominees for the category in future editions. Though the director has said his intention was to release as it was, a full 7-hour project, and many other film festivals had presented in such way, ESPN showed it as a multi-part project in several parts which made possible for this rule change at the Oscars.
As well as airing in five parts on ESPN in the United States, the documentary was also shown over five consecutive nights on BBC Four in the United Kingdom.
In July of 2017, about a year after the film was released, O.J. Simpson was granted parole from his crime of armed robbery, and released in October of that year.