The movie was inspired by the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri. He landed at Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris in 1988, after being denied entry into England because his Iranian passport and United Nations refugee certificate had been stolen. French authorities wouldn't let him leave the airport, so he remained in Terminal One, a stateless person with nowhere else to go. He was eventually granted permission to either enter France or return to Iran, but he chose to live in the terminal and tell his story to anyone who would listen. Reportedly, his mental health deteriorated over the years. When given the opportunity to live in France, he refused because the documents did not identify him as "Sir Alfred", and he claimed to have forgotten his native Persian. He left the terminal in August 2006 to be hospitalized for an unspecified illness. Afterward, he lived in a hotel on the money received from the film (DreamWorks reportedly paid him $250,000 for the use of his biography). Nasseri moved back to Charles de Gaulle airport in October 2022. He died in terminal 2F on November 12, 2022.

Napoleon did not "isolate himself on the tiny island of St Helena". He was exiled there and kept under guard until his death. There is also no evidence that he tried to poison himself.

SPOILER: Part of the closing credits of the prominent cast/crew use their actual signature. This follows with the secondary plot of Victor trying to get the last signature for the memory of his deceased father, as well as is a tribute to the "Star Trek" film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) which did the same thing.

Featured in HBO First Look: Inside 'The Terminal' (2004)