Aside from films, he was a popular stage actor in Panevėžys, where he acted since the age of 17, and which was frequented by Donatas' fans from all over the former Soviet Union.

Vladimir Putin once stated that Banionis' part in the 1968 Soviet spy film Dead Season was the reason why he joined the KGB.

He acted in many plays, including "The Inspector General" by Nikolai Gogol (1945); Liar by Carlo Goldoni (1952); How the Steel Was Tempered, based on the novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky (1952); Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (1957), There, Behind the Door, based on the work of Wolfgang Borchert (1966); and The Chair, by Valery Vrublevskaya (1980).

[2][3] In the 1990s, the actor performed in the plays "Mindaugas" by Justinas Marcinkevičius (1994), "On the Golden Lake" by Ernest Thompson (1996), "The Circle" by Somerset Maugham (1996), "Love Letters" by Albert Garni (1997)[2][3] In 1947, Banionis appeared in the film Marytė.

However, his cinematic debut is considered to be the film Adam wants to be a Man (1959) by director Vytautas Žalakevičius, then Banionis starred in his picture The Chronicle of One Day (1964).

[2][3] Banionis starred in the films Nobody Wanted to Die (1965), The Little Prince (1966), Operation Trust (1967), King Lear (1970), Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment (1971), The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce (1976), Beethoven — Days of a Life (1976), Armed and Dangerous (1976), Commander of the Lucky "Pike" (1972), The Flight of Mr. McKinley (1975), Centaurs (1978), Niccolo Paganini (1982), Zmielov (1985), Living Target (1990), Without Evidence (1992), Anna (1996) Yard (1999), Tadas Blinda, The Beginning (2011), etc.

[2][3] Banionis was a member of the Jurgis Baltrušaitis Foundation, whose goal is to promote cultural ties and expand humanitarian cooperation between Lithuania and Russia.

At the film festival of the CIS and Baltic countries Kinoshok in 1999 he was awarded with a special prize "Lady luck" named after Pavel Luspekaev, "for courage and outstanding merits in creativity.

They had two sons - Egidijus (1948-1993), a historian, posthumously awarded the State Prize in the field of science, and Raimundas (born in 1957), director.