He appeared as Sergeant Richard Santoro on Steven Bochco's Brooklyn South and Officer Ray Hechler on the critically acclaimed but short-lived Boomtown.

He has worked for Martin Scorsese three times, first in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and then The Irishman (2019) and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

In 1985 he portrayed the father, Jack Grainger, in the film One Magic Christmas with Mary Steenburgen.

Basaraba played American journalist Heywood Broun in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle in 1994, and in 1996 appeared as Alberto in Striptease.

In 2010, he played the role of Jimmy Burke in "After Hours", the tenth episode of the first season of the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.