The Beach was initially met with positive reviews, and with a spreading word of mouth response, the novel grew in popularity; it led some critics to regard Garland a key voice of Generation X.

In 2018, Karl Urban, who played the eponymous role in the film, stated that it was Garland who deserved credit for also directing Dredd.

[17] Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac.

Garland has described it as "an adaptation [that] was a memory of the book," rather than book-referenced screenwriting, to capture the "dream like nature" and tone of his reading experience.

[22] In January 2021, Garland was hired to direct his third film, Men, starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear.

[25] In April 2022, it was announced that Garland worked with A24 again for his fourth feature, Civil War, an action epic starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and previous collaborators Stephen McKinley Henderson and Cailee Spaeny.

Garland will reunite with Boyle to write 28 Years Later, the long-gestating sequel to 28 Days Later, which is intended to launch a new trilogy of zombie films.

[28] The following month, Joseph Quinn, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Kit Connor, Cosmo Jarvis, Will Poulter and Finn Bennett joined the ensemble cast, and the film was revealed to be titled Warfare.

[29] The same month, Garland stated that he would not direct any films in the "foreseeable future" after the release of Civil War and that his co-directorial work on Warfare was "more of a supporting character" to Mendoza's.

[30] Garland wrote, served as executive producer, and directed the eight-episode miniseries Devs about the "mysterious ongoings at a tech company", for FX.

[31] It stars Ex Machina and Annihilation actress Sonoya Mizuno, alongside Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, and Alison Pill.

[31] Spaeny, who did not audition for the role as Garland had wanted her specifically for it said that Devs was short for Development, and the series would explore the idea of the multiverse.

[32] In May 2022, a television series based on Never Let Me Go was optioned at FX, to be executive produced by Garland, who previously wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film adaptation of the same name.

[35] Garland and Tameem Antoniades co-wrote the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.