Apted gained instant credibility with his American film debut, "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), one of the finest musical bios ever made. The rags-to-riches story of country star Loretta Lynn earned star Sissy Spacek a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar (for a performance that saw her do her own singing) and featured equally outstanding work from Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D'Angelo and Levon Helm in supporting parts. He stumbled with his next outing, "Continental Divide" (1981), despite the presence of potent collaborators like Lawrence Kasdan (screenwriter) and Steven Spielberg (executive producer), and returned to England for the so-so adolescent comedy "Kipperbang" (1982, made for British TV but released theatrically in the USA) before finally scoring at the box office with the absorbing murder mystery "Gorky Park" (1983). A very bad Richard Pryor vehicle, "Critical Condition" (1986), proved a momentary bump in the road, but he recovered his bearings with "Gorillas in the Mist" (1988), an intriguing blend of documentary and career-woman melodrama starring Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey, a ferocious and antisocial recluse whose fanatical protecting of "her" gorillas led to her murder.

His success in features not withstanding, Apted may be best remembered as a documentarian, particularly for the interview series started when he was a researcher for Granada's "World in Action" program. Although just an assistant on "7 Up" (1963), Paul Almond's attempt to document the effects of social and economic disparities among English schoolchildren of radically different backgrounds, Apted took over the project and made it his own, directing follow-up portraits of the same group of subjects at seven-year intervals in the sequels "14 Up" (1970) "21 Up" (1977), "28 Up" (1984), "35 Up" (1991) and "42 Up" (1998). The popularity of the series led to an American spin-off, "Age Seven in America" (CBS, 1992) and its later installment "14 Up in America" (Showtime, 1998), both directed by Phil Joanou with Apted behind the scenes as first producer, then executive producer. He subsequently set loose a Russian crew, which has completed its own versions of "7 Up" and "14 Up", and the franchise has since spread to South Africa, Japan and Germany.

Although there was a time when the "Up" films were his only break from fiction, Apted has increasingly expanded his scope as a nonfiction filmmaker. "Bring on the Night" (1985), his look into the formation of Sting's rock-jazz band culminating in their first concert performance, earned a Grammy for Best Music Video, Long Form, and he similarly profiled Russian rock star Boris Grebenshikov in "The Long Way Home" (Granada TV, CBS Music Video, 1989). After getting crackling performances from Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as father and daughter lawyers on opposite sides of a "Class Action" (1991) court case, he journeyed to Sioux country and exercised both his loves with the incisive documentary "Incident at Oglala" and the related "Thunderheart" (both 1992), a drama based loosely on those events of the 70s which occurred at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and led to the framing of Indian activist Leonard Peltier. The engrossing thriller starred Val Kilmer as an FBI man who discovers his own Indian roots while investigating murder on the reservation. He then traveled to China for "Moving the Mountain" (1994), a documentary look inside the inner circles of that country's pro-democracy circles.

Apted's penchant for dramas revolving around the fairer sex continued with his two 1994 features. In "Blink" the protagonist was a blind woman who regains her sight after twenty years, only to witnesses a murder, which she then doubts she has seen. For "Nell" Apted adopted a documentary tone to tell its story of a young woman (Jodie Foster) raised in isolation who becomes the center of controversy when a kindly doctor (Liam Neeson) and an ambitious psychologist (Natasha Richardson) take opposing views on whether she should be integrated into society. Following "Extreme Measures" (1996), a conspiracy thriller set in the medical world that tipped its hand too soon, the director embarked on back-to-back documentaries, "Inspirations" (1997) and "Me and Isaac Newton" (1999), the former detailing the creative process of celebrated artists while the latter looked at individuals who find solace in the answers provided by science. His reputation for helming character-driven projects prompted producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to invite him to take on James Bond in "The World Is Not Enough" (also 1999). Apted concentrated on providing a strong story to go with all the action and reinvigorated the franchise, elevating the Bond girls above their usual sexual ornamentation.

Apted directed the thriller "Enigma" in 2001 and the dismal Jennifer Lopez vehicle "Enough" in 2002. Also in 2002, he embarked on a documentary series on marriage called "Married in America." Using the same format as his seminal "Seven Plus Seven" series, the nine couple's lives will be documented over ten years. Apted returned to episodic television, directing the first three episodes of HBO’s lurid and violent historical hit, “Rome” (2005- ). He also directed an episode of “Blind Justice” (ABC, 2004-2005), about a police officer (Ron Eldard) battling to return to investigating crime after losing his sight in the line of duty. Meanwhile, Apted was re-elected President of the Directors Guild of America, his second such honor.