His best-known films include A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Deep Blue Sea.

Later, he worked as a buyer for a Finnish film distributor and met fellow Finn Markus Selin in Los Angeles in 1982.

They became friends and started writing a screenplay called "Arctic Heat", which later evolved into Born American, with Mike Norris in the leading role.

It became the highest-grossing film in the series until the 2003 release of Freddy vs. Jason, and its budget was seven times greater than the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Harlin achieved critical acclaim the following year when he produced Rambling Rose through his own Midnight Sun Pictures for director Martha Coolidge.

Cutthroat Island was one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, losing $147 million and leading to the bankruptcy of Carolco Pictures.

Harlin did go on to have moderate success with Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Davis in 1996, and the science fiction horror film Deep Blue Sea in 1999.

Harlin took over directing the action mystery film Mindhunters when the original director Peter Howitt dropped out, but the release was delayed by studio conflicts.

Harlin directed the 2016 action comedy film Skiptrace, which starred Jackie Chan alongside Johnny Knoxville and Fan Bingbing.

[18][19] In the late 1980s, Harlin was attached as the original director of Alien 3,[20] developing the film for a year before departing from the production due to creative differences.

At the time, he planned to follow it up with a film for Warner Bros., The Original Gangster, which deals with black L.A. gangs in the 1960s and with one of the founders of the Crips.

"[21][22] In March 1993, it was reported that following the success of the Western Unforgiven, TriStar Pictures had reentered development on an 18-year-old screenplay Hell and High Water, with Harlin directing and John Patrick Shanley hired to rewrite.

The script by Richard Jefferies featured a story in which Davis' character gives birth to twin boys, and is later suspected of murder when she merges their untainted human genes into a single being, fearing that they both would begin developing fly-hybrid characteristics.

In April 1995, HBO was reportedly developing a horror series called Fear Itself, about phobias, set to be directed by Harlin, written by Shane Black and produced by Michael De Luca.

[27] In May 1995, following The Long Kiss Goodnight, Harlin and Davis intended to follow-up with Exit Zero, a spec script by Kurt Wimmer about "what would happen if the Internet achieves consciousness and decides that the fate of the world is better off in its hands than it is in mankind's."

[33] In 1999, Harlin began developing the action-comedy Nosebleed at New Line Cinema, starring Jackie Chan as a window washer who foils a terrorist attack to destroy the World Trade Center.

In December 2004, it was reported that Harlin was hired develop and direct a feature based on the graphic novel Full Moon Fever by Joe Casey, for producers Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter.

[20] In 2006, Harlin collaborated with Markus Selin to direct a biopic of the Finnish President and Marshal of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, but budget constraints put the project on hold.

The screenplay was written by Heikki Vihinen and Marko Leino, and was scheduled to be the largest film production in Finnish history.

[38] However, 30% of the funding was cut by one of the financiers due to the Great Recession, and the delay meant that the time window for shooting the winter scenes during the spring of 2009 passed.

[43] On 8 May 2018, it was announced Harlin will direct Solara, a Chinese sci-fi epic revolving around an international team that must work together to save Earth from a global catastrophe.

[45] On January 19, 2021, it was announced that Harlin will direct the new Inspector Palmu film, based on a character created by Finnish writer Mika Waltari.