Two days before the film was released in theaters, the Nixon family issued a statement criticizing Stone's depiction of Nixon's private life, that of his childhood, and his part in planning the assassination of Fidel Castro. Some critics took Stone to task for portraying Nixon as an alcoholic but this information came from books by Stephen Ambrose, Fawn Brodie and Tom Wicker. Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film and placed it on his list of the top ten films of the year. The film grossed a total of $13 million in North America, well below its $44 million budget.
Nixon's alcohol dependence, as well as that of his wife, is fully implied in the film, as is the medication addiction he faced during his remaining years in office (Nixon's health problems, including his bout of phlebitis and pneumonia during the Watergate crisis, are also shown in the film, and his various medicaments are sometimes attributed to these health issues).
The film ends with Nixon's resignation and famous departure from the lawn of the White House on the helicopter, Army One. Real life footage of Nixon's state funeral in Yorba Linda, California, plays out over the extended end credits, and all living presidents at the time, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, are shown in attendance 
In 1993, Hamburg mentioned the idea of a Nixon film to writer Stephen J. Rivele with the concept being that they would incorporate all of the politician's misdeeds, both known and speculative. Rivele liked the idea and had previously thought about writing a play exploring the same themes. Hamburg encouraged Rivele to write a film instead and with his screenwriting partner, Christopher Wilkinson, they wrote a treatment on November 1993. They conceived of a concept referred to as "the Beast," which Wilkinson describes as "a headless monster that lurches through postwar history," a metaphor for a system of dark forces that resulted in the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, and helped Nixon's rise to power and his fall from it as well. Stone said in an interview that Nixon realizes that "the Beast" "is more powerful than he is. We can't get into it that much, but we hint at it so many times — the military-industrial complex, the forces of money." In another interview, the director elaborates, "I see the Beast in its essence as a System...which grinds the individual down...it's a System of checks and balances that drives itself off: 1) the power of money and markets; 2) State power, Government power; 3) corporate power, which is probably greater than state power; 4) the political process, or election through money, which is therefore in tow to the System; and 5) the media, which mostly protects the status quo and their ownership's interests." It was this concept that convinced Stone to make Nixon and he told Hamburg to hire Rivele and Wilkinson. Stone commissioned the first draft of the film's screenplay in the fall of 1993. Rivele and Wilkinson delivered the first draft of their script on June 17, 1994, the anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Stone loved the script but felt that the third act and the ending needed more work. They wrote another draft and delivered it on August 9th, the 20th anniversary of Nixon's resignation.
Stone originally had a three-picture deal with New Regency Films which included JFK, Heaven and Earth, and Natural Born Killers. After the success of Killers, Arnon Milchan, head of New Regency, signed Stone for three more motion pictures. Stone could make any film up to a budget of $42.5 million. When Stone told Milchan that he wanted to make Nixon, Milchan, who was not keen on the idea, told the director that he would only give him $35 million, thinking that this would cause Stone to abandon the project. Stone took the project to Hungarian financier Andrew Vajna who had co-financing deal with Disney. Vanjna's company, Cinergi Films, were willing to finance the $38 million film. This angered Milchan who claimed that Nixon was his film because of his three-picture deal with Stone and he threatened to sue. He withdrew after Stone paid him an undisclosed amount. Stone was finalizing the film's budget a week before shooting was to begin. He made a deal with Cinergi and Disney's Hollywood Pictures in order to supply the $43 million budget. To cut costs, Stone leased the White House sets from Rob Reiner's film, The American President.
In Spring of 1994, Time magazine reported that an early draft of the screenplay linked Nixon to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The facts contained in the script were based on research from various sources, including documents, transcripts and hours of footage from the Nixon White House. Dean said about the film's accuracy: \"In the larger picture, it reflected accurately what happened.\" Stone addressed the criticism of fictional material in the film, saying, \"The material we invented was not done haphazardly or whimsically, it was based on research and interpretation.\" John Taylor, head of the Nixon Presidential Library, leaked a copy of the script to Richard Helms, former Director of the CIA, who threatened to sue the production. In response, Stone cut out all scenes with Helms from the theatrical print and claimed that he did for \"artistic reasons\" only to reinstate this footage on the home video release.
During the post-production phase, Stone had his editors in three different rooms with the scenes from the film revolving from one room to another, \"depending on how successful they were.\" If one editor wasn't successful with a scene then it went to another. Stone said that it was \"the most intense post- I've ever done, even more intense than JFK\" because they were screening the film three times a week, making changes in 48-72 hours, rescreening the film and then making another 48 hours of changes.
Two days before the film was released in theaters, the Richard Nixon Library and birthplace in Yorba Linda, California issued a statement on behalf of the Nixon family, calling parts of the film "reprehensible" and that it was designed to "defame and degrade President and Mrs. Nixon's memories in the mind of the American public." This statement was based on a published copy of the script. The statement also criticized Stone's depiction of Nixon's private life, that of his childhood, and his part in planning the assassination of Fidel Castro. Stone responded that his "purpose in making the film, Nixon was neither malicious nor defamatory," and was an attempt to gain "a fuller understanding of the life and career of Richard Nixon — the good and the bad, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the legacy he left his nation and the world." Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, wrote a letter to Nixon's daughters saying that Stone had "committed a grave disservice to your family, to the Presidency, and to American history." Stone does not see his film as the definitive statement on Nixon but as "a basis to start reading, to start investigating on your own."
Some critics took Stone to task for portraying Nixon as an alcoholic, though Stone says that was based on information from books by Stephen Ambrose, Fawn Brodie, and Tom Wicker. Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised the film for how it took "on the resonance of classic tragedy. Tragedy requires the fall of a hero, and one of the achievements of Nixon is to show that greatness was within his reach. Ebert also placed the film on his list of the top ten films of the year. Janet Maslin from The New York Times praised Anthony Hopkins' performance and "his character's embattled outlook and stiff, hunched body language with amazing skill. However, Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle, felt that "the problem here isn't accuracy. It's absurdity. Hopkins' exaggerated portrayal of Nixon is the linchpin of a film that in its conception and presentation consistently veers into camp. Richard Corliss, in his review for Time, also had a problem with Hopkins' portrayal: "Hopkins, though, is a failure. He finds neither the timber of Nixon's plummy baritone, with its wonderfully false attempts at intimacy, nor the stature of a career climber who, with raw hands, scaled the mountain and was still not high or big enough".
It was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Joan Allen), Best Music, Original Dramatic Score and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.