He is best known for making big-budget high-concept action films with fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions.

[21] Bay began working at Propaganda Films, directing commercials and music videos, two weeks after finishing his postgraduate degree.

ad campaign for the California Milk Processors Board in 1993, which also won a Grand Prix Clio Award for Commercial of the Year.

[24][25] Bay's success in music videos gained the attention of producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who selected him to direct his first feature-length film, Bad Boys.

[28] His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), an action movie set on Alcatraz Island and in the San Francisco Bay area, starred Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris.

[32][33] The film, about a group of tough oil drillers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid from a collision course with Earth, starred Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler.

[36] In 2001, Bay directed Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

[39] Bay returned as director and executive producer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was released on June 24, 2009 and grossed over $832 million worldwide.

[52] The true crime story, based on events described in a Miami New Times article[53] by Pete Collins, concerns a group of bumbling bodybuilders working together to commit a robbery.

Bay produced DreamWorks' I Am Number Four, based on a series of novels by Pittacus Lore published by HarperCollins Children's Books.

While the lowest-grossing film of Bay's career at the box office, it went on to massive DVD sales on its digital release in May 2016, earning over $40 million in home video revenue.

[64] In 2018, it was announced that Bay would direct the Netflix action thriller film 6 Underground, starring Ryan Reynolds, Mélanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Adria Arjona, Corey Hawkins, Ben Hardy and Dave Franco.

[68] Bay produced the pandemic-themed thriller Songbird starting Demi Moore, Craig Robinson, Paul Walter Hauser and Peter Stormare.

[76] On October 7, 2024, Bay was set to direct the film Fast and Loose, with Chris Bremner and Eric Pearson writing the screenplay.

[80] Bay co-founded 451 Media Group with Doug Nunes (who is CEO), and with John and Anthony Gentile, who previously marketed brands such as Micronauts, Visionaries, Sky Dancers and the Power Glove.

In 2015, the company announced an interactive publishing division to offer "augmented reality" content from printed graphic novels with digital video.

The creators involved included Scott Rosenberg, Skip Woods, George Pelecanos, Mark Mallouk, Clay McLeod Chapman and Peter and Paul Williams.

As part of the partnership, Bay will develop and direct a multiplatform action-adventure game and cinematic VR experiences, based on an original IP conceived by him.

[64][90] He owned a $50 million Gulfstream G550 jet, as well as a Bentley, a Range Rover, an Escalade, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and two Camaros from the Transformers franchise.

[91] His movies look like a more compacted, cartoonish messy version of films by British commercial directors like Adrian Lyne and Ridley and Tony Scott.

He packs each frame with baroque detail and floods the screen with light and smog; he prefers extreme wide angles or punishingly tight telephoto close-ups, which make each shot dense enough to burst.

[101][102] Another point of contention with Bay's films is his portrayal and use of offensive racial stereotypes as comedic relief; one alleged example being the characters Skids and Mudflap in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

[104] He came under scrutiny for firing Megan Fox in retaliation[105] after she made comments about him mistreating her on the set of the Transformers films and compared him to Adolf Hitler and Napoleon.

[99][106][107] Bay published an open letter written by three anonymous members of the crew of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that referred to Fox as, among other things, "Ms. Sourpants", "porn star", "unfriendly bitch", and "dumb-as-a-rock".

[109][110] In 2020, Fox revisited the incident and denied that she was underaged (for Transformers) or "made to 'wash' or work on someone's cars in a way that was extraneous from the materials in the actual script.

[108] Actress Kate Beckinsale also spoke out publicly by reporting that she was body-shamed and regularly criticized for her appearance by Bay during the making of Pearl Harbor.

Film historian Jeanine Basinger has described him as "the most cinematic and fluid and unafraid director", while Scott Foundas of Variety has lauded his "grand, epic vision" and positively compared him to William Wyler.

Actress Scarlett Johansson wrote that Bay is "a truly ambitious storyteller who celebrates characters, actors, and leading men and women alike.