As a researcher and assistant to Canadian director Paul Almond, Apted was involved in selecting the children, who came from a variety of backgrounds and classes.

It studies the participants based on the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man",[9] looking at how they develop during their lives, compared to when they were seven.

"[12] During his seven-year period of working at Granada, Apted also directed a number of episodes of Coronation Street,[13] then written by Jack Rosenthal, among others.

Apted and Rosenthal later collaborated on a number of popular television and film projects, including the pilot episodes for The Dustbinmen[14] and The Lovers.

He directed six plays including Stronger than the Sun, written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Francesca Annis as a young woman who places her life in danger to expose a crime, a theme Apted returned to several times.

[24] He went to the United States in 1980, where he directed Coal Miner's Daughter,[25] which received seven Academy Award nominations, winning best actress for Sissy Spacek.

[26] Both Spacek and Loretta Lynn, the subject of the film, have said that they believe Apted's outsider point of view was crucial to the movie's success in securing the participation of Appalachian residents and to the avoidance of stereotypes that previously had marred portrayals of mountain culture.

[27][28] In 2019, Coal Miner's Daughter was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 1983 he directed Gorky Park, a political thriller based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, that deals with police corruption in the former Soviet Union.

[36] In addition to the Up series, Apted made other documentaries, including Bring On the Night, a feature-length concert film about the making of Sting's first solo album.

It chronicled the UK, US and USSR adventures of Boris Grebenshchikov, the first Soviet underground musician allowed to record in the West.

[39] In 1997, he explored the creative process in Inspirations through candid discussion with seven artists from diverse media, including David Bowie, Louise Lecavalier and Roy Lichtenstein among others.