In creating a black comedy revolving around the "lunatic characters" of Heller's satirical anti-war novel set at a fictional Mediterranean base during World War II, director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry (also in the cast) worked on the film script for two years, converting Heller's complex novel to the medium of film.

The cast included Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Italian actress Olimpia Carlisi, French comedian Marcel Dalio, Art Garfunkel in his acting debut, Jack Gilford, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Austin Pendleton, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and Orson Welles.

Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Force B-25 bombardier, is stationed on the Mediterranean base on Pianosa during World War II.

Along with his squadron members, Yossarian is committed to flying dangerous missions, but after watching friends die, he seeks a means of escape.

Trapped by this convoluted logic, Yossarian watches as individuals in the squadron resort to unusual means to cope; Milo concocts elaborate black market schemes while crazed Captain "Aarfy" Aardvark commits murder to silence a girl he has raped.

Lieutenant Nately falls for a sex worker, Major Danby delivers goofy pep talks before every bomb run, and Captain Orr keeps crashing at sea.

Nately dies as a result of an agreement between Milo and the Germans, trading surplus cotton in exchange for the squadron bombing its own base.

Immediately after agreeing to Cathcart's and Korn's plan, Yossarian survives an attempt on his life when stabbed by Nately's partner, who had disguised herself as a janitor.

Main cast (as appearing in screen credits): Orson Welles first tried to buy the rights to Heller's novel to independently produce and direct it in 1962, but was unsuccessful.

Heller grew dissatisfied with the two as he believed they were “incapable of pursuing the wildly satirical (and anti-military) point of view of his novel.” The studio subsequently sold the rights to Martin Ransohoff at Filmways in 1967, which had already hired Mike Nichols to direct.

However, the project was delayed for several years as Nichols and John Calley searched for Italian terrain that had not been destroyed by World War II.

[6] The pacing of the novel Catch-22 is frenetic, its tenor intellectual, and its tone largely absurdist,[7] interspersed with brief moments of gritty, almost horrific, realism.

The novel did not follow a normal chronological progression; rather, it was told as a series of different and often (seemingly, until later) unrelated events, most from the point of view of the central character Yossarian.

[17] Second unit director John Jordan refused to wear a harness during a bomber scene and fell out of the open tail turret 4,000 ft (1,200 m) into the Pacific Ocean to his death.

The website's consensus reads: "Catch-22 takes entertainingly chaotic aim at the insanity of armed combat, supported by a terrific cast and smart, funny work from Buck Henry and Mike Nichols.

"[23] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, calling it "a disappointment, and not simply because it fails to do justice to the Heller novel."

"[25] Charles Champlin, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, felt that Catch-22 is awfully good, and also a disappointment: Chilly brilliant at its best but flawed at last by its detachment and by its failure to catch fire and give off heat.

"[26] Richard Schickel in LIFE panned the film, saying it failed to translate what made Joseph Heller's novel a generational phenomenon to the screen.

It was not regarded as a comparable success, earning less money and critical acclaim than the film version of MASH, another war-themed black comedy released earlier the same year.

[11] Critic Lucia Bozzola wrote "Paramount spent a great deal of money on Catch-22, but it wound up getting trumped by another 1970 antiwar farce: Robert Altman's MASH.