Several of Griffith's later films were successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but the high costs he incurred for production and promotion often led to commercial failure.

When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky; there she opened a boarding house, which was unsuccessful.

Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore.

[9] In 1908, Griffith accepted a role as a stage extra in Professional Jealousy for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he met cameraman Billy Bitzer.

[11] McCutcheon Jr. did not bring the studio success;[10] Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin then gave Griffith the position,[10] and he made the short The Adventures of Dollie.

[16] The film was a success, but its depiction of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, race relations in the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction era of the United States aroused much controversy.

This view of the era was popular at the time and was endorsed for decades by historians of the Dunning School, but it met with strong criticism from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other groups.

Griffith features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922), The White Rose (1923), America (1924) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924).

[31] In 1946, he made an impromptu visit to the film location of David O. Selznick's epic western Duel in the Sun, where some of his veteran actors—Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey—were cast members.

Gish and Barrymore found their mentor's presence distracting, and they became self-conscious; in response, Griffith hid behind the scenery when the two were filming their scenes.

Despite criticism, he was a widely celebrated and respected public figure during his life, and modern film historians continue to recognize him for his contributions to the craft of filmmaking.

Nevertheless, many critics during his lifetime, as well as in the decades since his death, have characterized him and his work (most notably The Birth of a Nation) as upholding white supremacist ideals.

Historians frequently cite The Birth of a Nation as a major factor in the KKK's revival in the 20th century, and it remains controversial to this day.

Filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock,[36] Lev Kuleshov,[37] Jean Renoir,[38] Cecil B. DeMille,[39] King Vidor,[40] Victor Fleming,[41] Raoul Walsh,[42] Carl Theodor Dreyer,[43] and Stanley Kubrick have praised Griffith.

[44] Sergei Eisenstein expressed his admiration for Griffith as an "outstanding master", but criticized Birth of a Nation, calling it "disgraceful propaganda of racial hatred towards the colored people".

[45] Griffith seems to have been of the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his The Birth of a Nation (1915).

His early shorts —such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood and tension.