It is based on the memoir of the same name by Peter Turner, which tells of his relationship with Academy Award-winning American actress Gloria Grahame in 1970s Liverpool and, some years later, her death from stomach cancer.

At the 71st British Academy Film Awards, it received three nominations: Best Actress (Bening), Best Actor (Bell) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Back in 1979, in the twilight of her once-prolific and Academy Award-winning career, Gloria is playing the role of Sadie in W. Somerset Maugham's Rain in London and asks another tenant at her boarding house—Peter—to practise dancing disco with her.

Gloria kicks him out of her New York City apartment, and he returns to Liverpool for an acting job in an Alan Bleasdale play.

It is revealed that Gloria's sudden change of heart in New York City was driven by her learning that her cancer had returned.

On 6 May 2016, it was reported that Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, and Julie Walters would star in an adaptation of Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool by Peter Turner, a memoir about Turner's relationship with actress Gloria Grahame in the last years of her life.

Paul McGuigan would direct from a script written by Matt Greenhalgh, and Barbara Broccoli and Colin Vaines would produce.

[9] To fill in for scenes set in New York City and Malibu, California, the crew used rear-screen projections.

[3] On 11 November 2017, Elvis Costello released an original song entitled "You Shouldn't Look at Me That Way", composed specifically for the film.

[citation needed] In August 2017, Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights to the film for North America, Eastern Europe, Germany and Asia pay TV.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool showcases brilliant work from Annette Bening, whose performance is more than enough to outweigh this biopic's basic narrative.