The film stars Timothy Bottoms, Kathy Fields, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland, and Diane Varsi.

[5] Joe Bonham, a young American soldier during World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being hit by an artillery shell.

He has lost his eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and limbs, but remains conscious and able to reason, rendering him a prisoner in his own body.

He is asked what he wants, and requests for the United States Army to put him in a glass coffin in a freak show as a demonstration of the horrors of war.

[2] The film distinguishes between Joe's reality and fantasy by presenting the scenes in the hospital in black-and-white, and his dreams and memories in color.

His dreams, such as when he talks to his dead father and Jesus Christ, are drug-induced, and the color is more saturated than it is during his memories, such as the fishing trip and his last night with Kareen.

[9] Its North American distribution rights were acquired by Cinemation Industries, and it opened on August 4, 1971, at the RKO 59th Street Twin theater in New York City.

Roger Ebert gave it a full four-stars out of four, writing that Trumbo had handled the material, "strange to say, in a way that's not so much anti-war as pro-life.

He reported that he watched it twice, and, while he found it to be "as savagely effective as any antiwar film" after the first viewing, he changed his opinion after the second, feeling that "it didn't work at all," with the color flashback scenes "poorly acted and scripted", and the dreams "frequently much too detailed and barely illusory.

[19] The 1988 song "One" by thrash metal band Metallica has a central character similar to the one in Johnny Got His Gun, and the music video released in early 1989 features a number of clips from the film.

[20] After a "city-by-city, single-screen release" of the filmed performance,[20] a special educational DVD became available free of charge to every high school library in the U.S. in October 2010.