In 1969 he became involved in scriptwriting, receiving his first screen credits for Antonio Giménez Rico El Cronicón (The Chronicle, 1970).

During this same period, Garci also wrote the made for T.V film La Cabina (The Telephone Box, 1972) directed by Antonio Mercero.

[5] At the same time, he wrote his first literary works, science fiction stories like: Bibidibabibidibú (1970), Adam Blake (1972), and La Gioconda está triste y otras extrañas historias (1976).

[7] In 1977, José Luis Garci directed his first feature film Asignatura pendiente (Unfinished Business) from a script by Gonzalez Sinde, a love story between an old pair of lovers which runs parallel to the social and political changes lived in Spain after the fall of Francisco Franco's regime.

[8][9] Garci second film Solos en la madrugada (Alone in the Dark, 1978)[10] became skilled tackling progressive social themes intended for an audience interested neither in elite art cinema nor in the popular style of most Spanish comedies.

After founding the production company Nickel Odeon with José Esteban Alenda in 1980,[12] the director changed gears with El Crack (1981),[13][14] in which he used the figure of the hard boiled detective in a story inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, to whom the film is dedicated, and employing elements of the American film noirs of the 1930s and 40s giving it a Spanish flavor.

Between this two films, Garci made his most emblematic work Volver a empezar, (Begin to Beguine, 1982), a sentimental story of an aging writer who returns to Spain after many years in exiled following the civil war.

[16] His films Sesión continua (Double Feature, 1984) and Asignatura aprobada (Course Completed, 1987), which also received Academy Award nominations,[17][18] gave emphasis to sentimentality.

[31] In 2024 he received the EGEDA Gold Medal at the 30th edition of the Forqué Awards, recognizing his career as a director, producer and screenwriter in Spanish cinema and his role as a disseminator.