The film's powerful depiction of wartime suffering, particularly its climactic sequence of the "return of the dead", made it an international success and confirmed Gance as one of the most important directors in Europe.

Among them is François Laurin, a man of jealous and violent temperament, who is married to Édith, the daughter of an upright veteran soldier Maria Lazare.

François and Jean find themselves serving in the same battalion at the front, where the initial tensions between them give way to a close friendship that acknowledges that they both love Édith.

In a great battle, in which a mythical figure of Le Gaulois leads on the French forces, François is wounded and dies in the field hospital.

Jean challenges the villagers to say whether they have been worthy of the men's sacrifices, and they watch in horror as their dead family and friends appear on the threshold.

Abel Gance had been drafted into the French Army's Section Cinématographique during World War I, but he was later discharged because of ill health, a piece of good fortune to which he later said he owed his life.

Influenced by the constant news of the deaths of friends at the front, and also by the recently-published book Le Feu by Henri Barbusse, he succeeded in persuading Charles Pathé to finance the film.

"[6] In the final scenes of the film, Gance's accusations, through the mouth of Jean Diaz, seem to be levelled against those who have not cared enough: the civilians who enjoyed another life, profited from the war, or simply forgot what it meant.

"[6] Not all critics however have been convinced of the focus of Gance's argument: "Seemingly critical of a patriotism that blindly ignores the death it causes, J'accuse ends up celebrating the dead's sacrifice as a form of patriotism,"[7] Others have noted that J'accuse mixes pacifism with nationalism by pointing to Gance's inspirations, which included not only Henri Barbusse but also Émile Zola and Richard Grelling.

Gance's assistant director was the writer Blaise Cendrars, who had lost an arm while fighting in 1915, and who also appeared as one of the dead soldiers rising from the battlefield.

[12] Pathé initially had no success in selling the film for distribution in the United States, where its references to pacifism were unfavourably regarded, and in 1921, Gance went to America hoping to launch it himself.

[16] It was re-edited into a shorter version entitled I Accuse, released in 1921 and intended for American audiences, with a less universal anti-war slant, a more anti-German stance, and a happy ending.

In 1938, Gance made another version of J'accuse, this time with sound and looking ahead to the imminent outbreak of World War II.