Walsh began his amusement career as a stage actor in New York City, quickly progressing into film acting. Inside 1914 he became assistant to D.W. Griffith and made his first full-length feature film The Life of General Vila in the same year, followed by the newly-revisited and critically-acclaimed Regeneration in 1915, possibly the earliest gangster film. He enjoyed profits by using a innovative & outstanding The Thief of Baghdad in 1924 starring Douglas Fairbanks. In the early times of healthy using Fox Walsh directed the Westerns In Old Arizona in 1929 and The Big Trail in 1930, a latter movie star the so unknown John Wayne. The non too-distinguished time followed by using Paramount Pictures from 1935 to 1939 but Walsh's career rose to new heights before long when moving to Warner Brothers with The Roaring Twenties (1939), High Sierra (1941) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with such stars when James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn. His contract at Warners expired around 1953 and he retired in 1964.

The introduction member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Walsh lost an eye within the car accident when working on the film Inside Old Arizona inside 1929. He was a brother of silent movie actor George Walsh.

Among his better known works come:

A Life of General Villa (1914), directorial debut Regeneration (1915) Evangeline (1919) The Thief of Bagdad (1924), produced by & starring Douglas Fairbanks What Price Glory? (1926), his most successful silent movie Sadie Thompson (1928), in which he acted alongside Gloria Swanson In Old Arizona (1929) The Big Trail (1930) Klondike Annie (1936), starring Mae West The Roaring Twenties (1939) They Drive by Night (1940) High Sierra (1941) Desperate Journeying (1942) Northern Pursuit (1943) Pursued (1947), starring Robert Mitchum White Heat (1949), with James Cagney Colorado Territory (1949), a remake of High Sierra Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) Distant Drums (1951), remarkable for its innovative sound effects Blackbeard a Pirate (1952) A Tall Men (1955) A King & 4 Queens (1956) Esther & a King (1960) ''Marines, Let's Last (1961) The Distant Trumpet'' (1964), final film.

He too unofficially co-directed Humphrey Bogart's The Enforcer in 1951.

Rather his contemporary Howard Hawks, Walsh was known for never letting a information become in the way of a good story. Leonard Maltin has described Walsh's autobiography as "entertaining fiction with an occasional nod at the truth".