[3][4] His work on the Harry Potter series brought him critical and commercial success along with accolades, such as the British Academy Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing.

His credits include the six-part political thriller State of Play (2003), for which he won the Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, the adult two-part documentary drama Sex Traffic (2004) and the Emmy Award-winning television film The Girl in the Café (2005).

The programme followed media personalities Russell Grant, Honor Blackman and Pam Ayres visiting and exploring the South Coast towns of Brighton, Eastbourne and Weymouth.

[35][36][37] Yates directed the television adaptation of nine-year-old Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters, starring Jim Broadbent alongside Hugh Laurie.

It won eight BAFTA Awards including Best Editing for Mark Day, who regularly worked with Yates on many of his television projects and short films.

[41][42][43] Also in 2004, Yates was involved in plans for a film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited for Warner Independent Pictures.

He was set to work with Paul Bettany, Jude Law and Jennifer Connelly on the project, but pulled out in the later stages due to constant budget issues affecting the film's production.

[44][45] Yates then directed Richard Curtis' script to The Girl in the Café, a television film starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald.

[13][46][47] During the period of working on plans for Brideshead Revisited, Yates was told by his agent that he had made the director shortlist for the fifth film in the Harry Potter series and that Warner Bros. was eyeing him to direct.

"[50] Before production began, Yates invited Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell to a pub and "picked his brains about what it was going to be like to step into someone's shoes on a movie of this scale".

[53][54] During production of Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros. executive Alan F. Horn announced that the seventh and final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was to be split into two cinematic parts with Yates, once again, as the director.

"[64][65][66] Yates reshot the final scene of the Harry Potter series at Leavesden Studios after the original version, filmed at London King's Cross railway station, did not meet his expectations.

The Dallas Morning News affirmed that "David Yates' fluid, fast-paced direction sends up the crackling tension of a thriller" and The New York Times analysed Yates's approach to J. K. Rowling's character development by saying that he has "demonstrated a thorough, uncondescending sympathy for her characters, in particular the central trio of Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter himself.

"[68][69] The film was praised for its "dark" atmosphere and its loyalty to the source material, but it was criticised for its slow middle act, the handling of exposition, and the somewhat disjointed pacing.

[72][73] The Daily Telegraph described Part 2 as "monumental cinema awash with gorgeous tones" and Total Film wrote that Yates combines "spectacle and emotion into a thrilling final chapter.

[80] Yates attended the 64th British Academy Film Awards in February 2011, where he was joined by J. K. Rowling, David Heyman, Mike Newell, Alfonso Cuarón, David Barron, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in collecting the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema on behalf of the Harry Potter films.

Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed the films' titular character, commented on working with Yates, saying that he "added his own sense of grit and realism [to the series] that perhaps wasn't there so much before.

"[1][81] By 2012, Yates was working on a few Warner Bros. projects, including a Tarzan feature film and an Al Capone biopic called Cicero.

[82][83] He also controversially said that he was working with BBC Worldwide on plans to develop a Doctor Who film,[84] although this was denied by the showrunner, Steven Moffat, in July 2012.

[87] The following year, Yates began shooting The Legend of Tarzan, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent, and Christoph Waltz.

[88] Yates directed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a 2016 film which is the first in a series of five instalments based on J. K. Rowling's book, set in the world of her Harry Potter novels.

It stars Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell, and Johnny Depp.

Yates directed the 2018 sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald which received mixed critical reception but emerged a box office success having grossed $654 million.