[1] After relocating to Hollywood he made numerous feature films, including A Face in the Crowd (1957), The Long, Hot Summer (1958), and Career (1959), for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor.

[3] Franciosa made his film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957) alongside Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, and Lee Remick.

[7] He played Francisco Goya in MGM's The Naked Maja (1958) with Ava Gardner, which earned Franciosa $250,000 in acting fees due to production delays.

He made a second film for Wallis, Career (1959) with Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine,[16][17] then The Story on Page One (1959) with Rita Hayworth for Clifford Odets at Fox.

He was meant to star in Orpheus Descending (which became The Fugitive Kind) with Anna Magnani, but the producers decided to cast Marlon Brando, and Franciosa was paid out $75,000.

He was top-billed in the Italian Careless (1962) with Claudia Cardinale and MGM's Period of Adjustment (1962) with Jane Fonda, Franciosa's first film for that studio which made a profit.

He had supporting parts in two films for Fox: Rio Conchos (1964) with Stuart Whitman and Richard Boone, and The Pleasure Seekers (1964) with Ann-Margret and Carol Lynley.

Producer David Dortort was on the verge of casting him as Cameron Mitchell's best friend and brother-in-law, Manolito Montoya, on the western, The High Chaparral, if Henry Darrow did not make it to the set in time.

He was in Web of the Spider (1971), an Italian horror film, then a series of TV movies: The Deadly Hunt (1971), Earth II (1971), and The Catcher (1972).

Franciosa had a further alternating lead role in a TV series, this time rotating with Hugh O'Brian and Doug McClure, as agent Nick Bianco in Search (1972).

[25] He had his own series with Matt Helm (1975), a television version of the spy-spoof theatrical films that starred Dean Martin, but it only lasted 14 episodes.

In his memoir, From I Love Lucy to Shōgun and Beyond: Tales from the Other Side of the Camera, Jerry London stated that Franciosa could not remember his lines during the shooting of the television movie Wheels, so co-star Rock Hudson had to hold up cue cards for him during one scene in a car.

[27] In the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone, he appeared in the third-season episode "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich," playing a gangster who is revealed to be the ultimate demon.

Later performances included Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife (1987), Death House (1988), Fashion Crime (1989), Ghost Writer (1989), Backstreet Dreams (1990), and Double Threat (1992).

[28][29] Franciosa's final film was City Hall, a 1996 drama starring Al Pacino and John Cusack, in which he portrayed a crime boss.

He died on January 19, 2006, five days after the death of his second wife Shelley Winters, at age 77 at nearby UCLA Medical Center after suffering a massive stroke.