His other films include The NeverEnding Story (1984), Enemy Mine (1985), In the Line of Fire (1993), Outbreak (1995), Air Force One (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Troy (2004), and Poseidon (2006).

[9] Petersen made his first theatrical feature film in 1974, the psychological thriller One or the Other of Us, based on the novel Einer von uns beiden by Horst Bosetzky and published anonymously under his pseudonym and starring Jürgen Prochnow.

[15] The film starred Jürgen Prochnow as the U-boat Captain,[16] who became a good example of Petersen's action characters, a man at war who confronts danger and fate at sea.

After The NeverEnding Story (1984),[17] Petersen's first English-language film, he directed Enemy Mine (1985),[18][14] which was not a critical or box office success.

For both Air Force One and Outbreak, Petersen teamed up with the German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus,[21] who has also worked frequently with director Martin Scorsese.

[25] Although hired to direct the film adaptation of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card that was scheduled for release in 2008, he later "moved on"[26] from the project.

[28] After a ten-year hiatus, Petersen returned in 2016 as director of the heist comedy Vier gegen die Bank, his first German-language film since Das Boot in 1981.