Edvard Munch created several versions of The Scream in various media. The Munch Museum holds one of two painted versions (1910, see gallery) and one pastel. The National Gallery of Norway holds the other painted version (1893, shown to right). A fourth version, in pastel, is owned by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen. Munch also created a lithograph of the image in 1895.

The Scream has been the target of several high-profile art thefts. In 1994, the version in the National Gallery was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum. Both paintings were recovered in 2006. They had sustained some damage and went back on display in May 2008, after undergoing restoration.

The original German title given to the work by Munch was Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). The Norwegian word skrik is usually translated as scream, but is cognate with the English shriek. Occasionally, the painting has been called The Cry.

In a page in his diary headed Nice 22.01.1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:

One theory advanced to account for the reddish sky in the background is that Munch had observed an effect of the powerful volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in 1883: the ash that was ejected from the volcano left the sky tinted red in much of eastern United States and most of Europe and Asia from the end of November 1883 to mid February 1884. This explanation has been disputed by scholars who note that Munch was an expressive, rather than descriptive painter, and was therefore not primarily responsive to literal rendering. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the proximity to the site of the painting of both a slaughterhouse and a madhouse may have offered inspiration.

The scene was identified as being the view from a road overlooking Oslo, the Oslofjord and Hovedøya, from the hill of Ekeberg. At the time of painting the work, Munch's manic depressive sister Laura Catherine was interned in the mental hospital at the foot of Ekeberg.

In 1978, the Munch scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange, sexless creature in the foreground of the painting was probably inspired by a Peruvian mummy, which Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was crouching in a fetal position with its hands alongside its face, also struck the imagination of Munch's friend Paul Gauguin: it stood model for the central figure in his painting Human misery (Grape harvest at Arles) and for the old woman at the left in his painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. More recently, an Italian anthropologist speculated that Munch might have seen a mummy in Florence's Museum of Natural History which bears an even more striking resemblance to the painting.

The environment of The Scream is often compared to that of which an individual suffering from Depersonalization disorder experiences, such a feeling of distortion of the environment and one's self.

On February 12, 1994, the same day as the opening of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, four men broke into the National Gallery and stole its version of Scream, leaving a note reading "Thanks for the poor security". The painting had been moved down to a second-story display as part of the Olympic festivities, and the presence of international media covering the games made the theft a sensation. An early claim of responsibility by a Norwegian anti-abortion group turned out to be false. After the gallery refused a ransom demand of US$1 million in March 1994, Norwegian police set up a sting operation with assistance from the British Police (SO10) and the Getty Museum, and the painting was recovered undamaged on May 7, 1994. In January 1996, four men were convicted in connection with the theft, including Pål Enger, who in 1988 had been convicted of stealing Munch's Vampire. However, they were released on appeal on legal grounds: the British agents involved in the sting operation had entered Norway under false identities.

Another version of The Scream was stolen in 2004. On August 22, during daylight hours, masked gunmen entered the Munch Museum in Oslo and stole two paintings: Scream and Munch's Madonna. A bystander photographed the robbers as they escaped with the artwork to their car (shown at right). On April 8, 2005, Norwegian police arrested a suspect in connection with the theft, but the paintings remained missing and it was rumored that they had been burned by the thieves to destroy evidence. On June 1, 2005, with four suspects already in custody in connection with the crime, the City Government of Oslo offered a reward of 2 million Norwegian kroner (roughly US$313,500 or €231,200) for information that could help locate the paintings. Though the paintings remained at large, six men went on trial in early 2006, variously charged with either helping to plan or participating in the robbery. Three of the men were convicted and sentenced to between four and eight years in prison in May 2006, and two of the convicted, Bjørn Hoen and Petter Tharaldsen, were also ordered to pay compensation of 750 million kroner (roughly US$117.6 million or €86.7 million) to the City of Oslo. The Munch Museum itself was closed for 10 months for a $6 million security overhaul.[citation needed]