Stakeout on Dope Street (1958) marked his first (although uncredited) work as a cinematographer. He went on to shoot several features, many, like The Hoodlum Priest (1961), noted for their social themes. Wexler has stated that Elia Kazan’s America, America (1963) marked the turning point in his Hollywood career and includes “some of the best photography” that he shot. He went on to shoot the intense, claustrophobic black and white images of Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which earned him an Oscar, as well as providing memorable and distinctive looks to Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967), George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973) and Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). His beautiful rendering of the muted tones of the American Dust Bowl (including several storms) in Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory (1976) earned him a second Oscar for Best Cinematography. Wexler also lensed Ashby’s Vietnam-era Coming Home (1978), John Sayles’ union-busting tale Matewan (1987), the urban gang drama Colors (1988), the biopic Blaze (1989) and The Babe (1992), Sayles’ Irish fable The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) and the period crime drama Mulholland Falls (1996).

Wexler has also produced, written, directed and/or photographed a number of documentary films in his long career. Among the highlights are The Bus (1965) and its sequel, Bus II (1983), the Oscar-winning short Interviews With My Lai Veterans (1970), Brazil: A Report on Torture (1971), Introduction to the Enemy (1974), co-directed with Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden and Bill Yahrans, CIA: Case Officer (1978) and At the Max (1991), which recorded the 1990 European tour of the Rolling Stones. Wexler was also one of several directors of photography interviewed for the superlative Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992).