He scored commercial successes directing sports films like Downhill Racer (1969) and The Bad News Bears (1976), and comedies like Chevy Chase's Fletch (1985) and Eddie Murphy's The Golden Child (1986).
He told Robert Redford's biographer, author Michael Feeney Callan, that academic interest in film culture was the basis and drive for his career.
[This quote needs a citation]In 1994, Ritchie purchased the hacienda-style house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, in the Brentwood district of Los Angeles, where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.
This led Robert Saudek to offer him a job, and Ritchie worked on several TV series prior to his film debut in 1969 with Downhill Racer.
Although originally known for his sports films and satires in the 1970s, such as The Candidate and The Bad News Bears, he became more known for his broad comedies in the 1980s, such as Fletch and The Golden Child.