Frustrated by what he felt were inaccurate military portrayals in Hollywood, Dye landed his first job as a technical advisor (and bit player) in the 1986 sci-fi movie "Invaders from Mars". Forming Warriors, Inc., he set himself up as the film industry's resident drill sergeant and expert on military matters (and went on to land bit parts and more substantial supporting roles as officers, often in the films on which he advised). In 1986, Dye began his longest and perhaps most fruitful screen collaboration with writer-director Oliver Stone. The Oscar-winning "Platoon" (1986) and 1989's "Born on the Fourth of July" both impressed many with realistic depictions of combat in Vietnam. Dye also consulted on Stone's conspiracy-laden "JFK" (1991) and the hyper-violent "Natural Born Killers" (1994).
Dye further earned acclaim for overseeing the realistic military images in such efforts as the underrated "The Beast" (1988), set in Afghanistan, John Frankenheimer's Vietnam drama "The Fourth War" (1990) and Robert Zemickis' Oscar-winning "Forrest Gump" (1994). As an actor, he depicted a captain in Brian De Palma's "Casualties of War" and a fireman in Steven Spielberg's "Always" (both 1989). He co-starred, produced and provided the story for "Fire Birds" (1990), a drama in which the US Army and the Drug Enforcement Agency team up to fight smugglers. Frequently, Dye has portrayed military figures in such films as both "Under Siege" (1992) and its sequel "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" (1994), "Blue Sky" (filmed in 1992; released in 1994) and "Outbreak" (1995). More recently, Dye was the advisor on the military content of such diverse films as Paul Verhoeven's futuristic "Starship Troopers" (1997), Joe Dante's "Small Soldiers" and Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (both 1998). The latter was especially acclaimed for its reenactment of the storming of Omaha Beach.