It was directed by Peter Yates, and the teleplay, by John Mortimer, was adapted from Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote.

The film stars Lithgow as Don Quixote de La Mancha (Quixote's real name is Alonso Quijano), and Bob Hoskins as Sancho Panza, and features Isabella Rossellini, Vanessa Williams, Lambert Wilson, Amelia Warner, Tony Haygarth, Peter Eyre, Lilo Baur, James Purefoy, and Trevor Peacock.

"[2] He discovered a friend of his, John Mortimer, had just written a script of Don Quixote and offered it to Yates to read.

[2] Of all the Hallmark adaptations of novels which premiered on Turner Network Television, only Don Quixote is still unavailable on a U.S. DVD.

The film was made in English and released on VHS shortly after it was telecast in the U.S. and a Region 2 DVD (PAL) was released by Hallmark in 2002, there is also a dubbed-into-Spanish version distributed by Divisa Home Video (Spain), and a DVD available with English or Russian-dubbed voices, with subtitles in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Russian.