He has created several television shows, including ABC's NYPD Blue (1993–2005), co-created with Steven Bochco, and HBO's Deadwood (2004–2006, 2019).

[4] To avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, Milch enrolled in Yale Law School, but he was expelled for allegedly shooting out a police car siren with a shotgun.

During his teaching career, he assisted Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks in the writing of several college textbooks on literature.

[7] Milch created NYPD Blue with Steven Bochco and served as executive producer of that series for seven seasons.

[8] In a 1994 seminar on "Human Values in Entertainment Writing: The Challenges and the Pitfalls," Milch described his affinity for the show's character Detective Andy Sipowicz by noting, "I'm racist.

A black has to experience more anger and self-division in order to achieve the kind of emotional neutrality that you need to write about the culture.

[10] Milch co-created the patrol police drama Brooklyn South with Bochco, Bill Clark, and William M. Finkelstein in 1997 while still working on NYPD Blue.

The series received critical acclaim and garnered Milch two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for writing and producing.

There were plans for two feature-length movies to conclude the series, ultimately resulting in a single film released by HBO in 2019.

Actor Ian McShane presented David Milch with the 2006 Outstanding Television Writer Award at the Austin Film Festival.

[15] In January 2010, Milch announced that he was developing a new drama for HBO entitled Luck, based around the culture of horse racing.

Other unrealized projects of Milch's during the early 2010s included a film adaptation of Quantic Dream's 2010 video game Heavy Rain,[19] a reunion with NYPD Blue collaborator Steven Bochco on an NBC legal drama,[20] and a series of films and television series for HBO based on the literary works of William Faulkner.

[21][22] In July 2013 HBO announced[23] at the Television Critics Association Press Tour that Milch was developing a new series for the cable network tentatively titled The Money.

[25] On April 20, 2017, Ian McShane announced that Milch had submitted a script for a two-hour Deadwood movie to HBO.