L’Année philologique covers a wide array of subjects, including Greek and Latin literature and linguistics—which includes early Christian texts and patristics—Greek and Roman history, art, archaeology, philosophy, religion, mythology, music, science, and scholarly subspecialties such as numismatics, papyrology, and epigraphy.

Abstracts of journal articles are provided in English, German, Spanish, French, or Italian. Book entries may include tables of contents and book review information.

L’Année philologique is international in character, not only in terms of the origins of the publications it indexes, but also in terms of its production, with teams from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States collaborating together to keep the database up-to-date.