His reputation is balanced between his avant-garde expressionist style, most evident in his early career, and his work as a fast, reliable studio-system director called on to finish troubled projects, such as 1939's Hotel Imperial.

[5] In the late 1920s he produced two experimental short films: The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928) co-directed with Slavko Vorkapić, and Skyscraper Symphony the following year.

[6] Florey accepted a contract to direct at Paramount Pictures, where he made The Hole in the Wall (1929), starring Claudette Colbert and Edward G. Robinson, and The Cocoanuts (1929), the first film of the Marx Brothers.

Florey, with the help of cinematographer Karl Freund and elaborate sets representing 19th century Paris, made Murders into an American version of German expressionist films such as Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

Florey went to Warner Bros. where he directed a number of "B" movies: Girl Missing (1933) with Glenda Farrell and Ben Lyon, Ex-Lady (1933) with Bette Davis, The House on 56th Street (1933) with Kay Francis, Bedside (1934) with Warren William, Registered Nurse (1934) with Bebe Daniels, Smarty (1934) with Joan Blondell and William, I Sell Anything (1934) with Pat O'Brien,I Am a Thief (1934) with Astor, The Woman in Red (1935) with Barbara Stanwyck, and The Florentine Dagger (1935) with Donald Woods.

[13][14] Florey directed Going Highbrow (1935) with Guy Kibbee, Don't Bet on Blondes (1935) with William (and a young Errol Flynn), and The Payoff (1935) with James Dunn.

Florey returned to Paramount where he directed Ship Cafe (1935) with Carl Brisson, The Preview Murder Mystery (1936) with Reginald Denny, Till We Meet Again (1936) with Herbert Marshall, Hollywood Boulevard (1936) with John Halliday and a young Robert Cummings, Outcast (1937) with William, King of Gamblers (1937) with Claire Trevor and Lloyd Nolan, Mountain Music (1937) with Bob Burns and Martha Raye, This Way Please (1937) with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Betty Grable, Daughter of Shanghai (1937) with Anna May Wong, Dangerous to Know (1938) with Wong, and King of Alcatraz (1938) with Gail Patrick and Nolan.

Florey directed Hotel Imperial (1939) with Isa Miranda and Ray Milland, The Magnificent Fraud (1939) with Akim Tamiroff and Nolan, Death of a Champion (1939) with Lynne Overman, Parole Fixer (1940) from a book by J. Edgar Hoover, and Women Without Names (1940) with Ellen Drew.

[15] Florey went to Warner Bros. for Dangerously They Live (1941) with John Garfield, Lady Gangster (1942) with Faye Emerson and the big budget musical The Desert Song (1943) with Dennis Morgan.

Florey directed Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) with Johnny Weissmuller for Sol Lesser in Mexico, and two French Foreign Legion films: Rogues' Regiment (1948) with Dick Powell and Outpost in Morocco (1949) with George Raft.

[18] He did The Crooked Way (1949) with John Payne, The Vicious Years (1950), Johnny One-Eye (1950) with Pat O'Brien, and Charlie's Haunt (1950) with Edgar Bergen then did some uncredited work on Flynn's The Adventure of Captain Fabian (1951).

His success at this mode of directing made him extremely suitable for television work, and he enlivened over 300 episodes of series like Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents with his characteristic stylistic flourishes.