The music video for the song received heavy airplay on MTV and is largely credited for breaking Green Day into mainstream popularity.

In 1995, Green Day received four Grammy Award nominations, including Best Hard Rock Performance for "Longview".

Bassist Mike Dirnt has stated that the famous bass line intro to this song was written one night while he was high on LSD.

The music video was directed by Mark Kohr, the cinematography was by Adam Beckman, and the editing was by Bob Sarles.

The music video takes place in a dimly-lit basement of a broken-down house in Oakland, California, where the band used to live.