[2][3] Acord began his career with photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber, which whom he made documentaries, commercials and music videos.

His breakthrough came after he shot the music video for Björk's "Big Time Sensuality", directed by Stéphane Sednaoui.

Acord made his first foray into narrative feature filmmaking as the cinematographer of Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 (1998).

He shot Spike Jonze's films Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Where the Wild Things Are (2009), Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006), and her short film Lick the Star (1998), as well as Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002).

He received 35 Cannes Lions for his work with clients such as Nike, Apple, HP, Volkswagen, P&G, Subaru.