His books The Panic in Needle Park and Report to the Commissioner were later made into major motion pictures by 20th Century Fox and United Artists respectively.
The Harvard Crimson review stated of Report to the Commissioner that: "James Mills has created just such an interloper: a story of deep suspense which moves on several planes of confrontation, ambition and human interaction.
Slickly written, carefully strung together, Report to the Commissioner skirts the obvious and pivots on the unexpected; in the best tradition of detective stories[3] The 1975 film version of Report to the Commissioner, featuring Richard Gere in his screen debut with a minor supporting role, was made after "the movie rights were snapped up by a motion picture industry starved for clever suspense stories.
"[3] On July 17, 1986, after the publication of The Underground Empire, Mills was invited to speak at a hearing of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs investigating the torture murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Kiki Camarena.
[4] On October 2, 1986, the Los Angeles Times published a 5,000-word investigation into The Underground Empire by David Cay Johnston, naming more than 40 sources, subjects, and witnesses who asserted that Mills had fabricated significant claims and misstated many facts.