Lindo has played prominent roles in four Spike Lee films: West Indian Archie in Malcolm X (1992), Woody Carmichael in Crooklyn (1994), Rodney Little in Clockers (1995), and Paul in Da 5 Bloods (2020).

Lindo also played Bo Catlett in Get Shorty (1995), Arthur Rose in The Cider House Rules (1999), and Detective Castlebeck in Gone in 60 Seconds (2000).

[7] In 1982 he debuted on Broadway in "Master Harold"...and the Boys, directed by the play's South African author Athol Fugard.

Other films in which he has starring roles are Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty (1995), Ron Howard's Ransom (1996), and Soul of the Game (1996), as the baseball player Satchel Paige.

In 1998 Lindo co-starred as African-American explorer Matthew Henson, in the TV film Glory & Honor, directed by Kevin Hooks.

It portrayed Henson's nearly 20-year partnership with Commander Robert Peary in Arctic exploration, and their effort to find the Geographic North Pole in 1909.

In the British film Wondrous Oblivion (2003), directed by Paul Morrison, Lindo starred as Dennis Samuels, the father of a Jamaican immigrant family in London in the 1950s.

[13] Lindo was in the main cast of the Fox crime drama The Chicago Code (2011), the NBC fantasy series Believe, and the ABC soap Blood & Oil (2015).

"[22] It was announced in July 2021 that Lindo would star as Mr Nancy in the British Amazon Prime miniseries adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys alongside Malachi Kirby.

They settled in Oakland, California, in 1996, having moved from New York City and preferring the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles.

[28] Upon learning more about the Windrush generation, both through his mother's account and his own role as a Jamaican immigrant in Wondrous Oblivion, Lindo became inspired to study the subject and history further.