His critical breakthrough was the 2001 crime thriller Training Day, winning the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Director.

His subsequent films include Tears of the Sun (2003), King Arthur (2004), Shooter (2007), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Southpaw (2015), The Magnificent Seven (2016) and The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023), earning with the first one the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture.

[4] Before turning to filmmaking and music videos, Fuqua studied electrical engineering, with the hope of going on to fly jets in the military.

[5] Fuqua pays tribute to screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa's, saying his writing "affected a boy from Pittsburgh living in the ghetto."

[7]Fuqua began his career directing music videos for popular artists such as Toni Braxton, Stevie Wonder, and Prince.

He directed Michelle Pfeiffer in the video Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio which was used to promote Jerry Bruckheimer's successful film Dangerous Minds.

The movie became a big hit and Jerry Bruckheimer was kind enough to give me a lot of credit for it because they used my music video ... the irony was people thought I was the new French film director.

[8][9] He co-created the comic-book miniseries After Dark with Wesley Snipes, which was written by Peter Milligan and illustrated by Jeff Nentrup.

Smith and Fuqua released a joint statement: "We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access".

[16] On December 3, 2021, he signed a first look deal with Netflix and renamed his production company from Fuqua Films to Hill District Media.