Other movies he has directed include the film adaptations of Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis and Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One.

[4] He had piano lessons until his early teens, and learnt to read music, but "wasn’t really prepared to put the necessary time in".

[6][4] In the 1970s, when still a student, Hicks attended numerous rock concerts by international acts, and used his Nikkormat camera to photograph them.

The photographs, taken at gigs including the Rolling Stones at Kooyong Tennis Club (1973); David Bowie at Adelaide Oval (1978); Bob Marley at the old Apollo Stadium; Bob Dylan at West Lakes (1978), David Cassidy (1974); The Police; and Rod Stewart on his Blondes Have More Fun tour,[4] have been preserved, and selected images have been mounted in at least two exhibitions: He started his directing career on music videos,[2] and worked with WEA Records (Australia) on several projects.

[12][2] Hicks started his film career in an industry stimulated by renewed government support for the arts, after a period of inactivity.

In 1989 he made a TV documentary series for the Discovery Channel, The Great Wall of Iron, which was filmed in China with the People's Liberation Army.

[2] Hicks' first Hollywood studio film was Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), based on David Guterson's novel of the same title.

[2] In 2014–15, Hicks made the documentary Highly Strung, about attempts by the Ngeringa Arts Centre to obtain four rare and valuable Guadagnini violins for the Australian String Quartet (ASQ).

[20][21] The film portrays the relationships within the ASQ, Australia's only full-time quartet, the wealthy arts patron, Ulrike Klein (founder of Jurlique) who purchases the violins, and a family of musicians and dealers in New York City called The Carpenters (David, Sean and Lauren Carpenter[22]).

[25] The State Library of South Australia holds records of Hicks' life and work, including papers relating his work on many feature films and documentaries (original script drafts and development, correspondence, production files, publicity and marketing files, press cuttings, etc.

[12] In 2024, Hicks donated his personal archive of film memorabilia and documentation to the State Library of South Australia, including such items as hand-drawn sketches of movie scenes, storyboards from completed films, and the glasses and costume worn by Geoffrey Rush in Shine.